HN 64 
cog 

' 6 "And ye shall know the truth and the 

truth shall make you free. " 

CopV 1 — John, VII Chap,, Verse 32. 

"A correct definition is often halfway 
to the solution of any problem. " 

—Wendell Phillips. 



THE WIDE WAY 

TO A 

TRUE REPUBLIC 



By 
THOMAS JEFFERSON SANDFORD 

Author of 

"Lex Fori," "Move On Old Man," "Rules and 

Suggestions for Public Speaking/' Etc. 



6th EDITION 



L 



i 



THE LABORER'S CATECHISM 



OR 



The Wide Way to a 
True Republic 



BY 

Thomas Jefferson Sandford, 

AUTHOR OF "LEX FORI," "MOVE ON OLD MAN," 

"RULES AND SUGGESTIONS FOR PUBLIC 

SPEAKING," ETC. 



"I will speak out, I will be heard, 
Though all earth's systems crack: 
111 not abate a single word, 
Nor take a tittle back." 



PUBLISHED BY 
THE SOCIETY OF THE TRUE REPUBLIC 

No. 149 CHURCH STREET 

NEW YORK 



* 



\fafc 



<bv 



\£> 



Copyright by 

THOMAS JEFFERSON SANDFORD 

1916 



This little volume is dedicated to the memory of my 
father, John Sandford, whose love and advocacy of the 
truth have been so implanted in me, that, notwithstanding 1 
the social ostracism and the financial discrimination to 
which I have been subject at the hands of bankers in my 
native city, I have never failed to array myself on the 
side of earery proposition which I considered true, without 
regard to the consequences. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON SANDFORD. 



"When great Galileo proclaimed that the world, 
In a regular orbit was ceasely whirled, 
And got not a convert for all of his pains; 
But only derision and prison and chains: 
'It moves for all that.' was his answering tone; 
For he knew like the earth he could go it alone." 

JOHN SAXE. 



PREFACE 



DURING twenty-eight years, I have struggled 
to impart to mankind the ideas taught me 
by a great genius, now deceased. In season and 
out, I have advocated a system of voting which 
would stop vote-buying, a system of collecting 
taxes which would stop tax-dodging, and a sys- 
tem of issuing money that would prevent money- 
cornering, devised by the late David Reeves 
Smith. 

Although a member of the New York Bar and 
an ex-assistant tax-commissioner of Greater New 
York City, in neither of the old political parties 
have I been able to obtain a fair hearing in my 
efforts to explain said ideas. 

With the hope that the truth-loving reader 
will perceive in this Catechism a practical solu- 
tion, along the lines of natural justice, of the 
apparently intricate problem of Wealth-central- 
ization, which is now so inimical to the welfare of 
our democratic-republican form of government, I 
have prepared these questions and answers. 

Christopher Columbus spent eighteen years 
striving to interest some one with "purchasing- 
power" in his irrefutable theory, that the world 
was round. Finally he succeeded; and the dis- 
covery of a new hemisphere, which he gave to 



royalty, was the result. But David Reeves Smith, 
(a practical Civil Engineer) immeasurably sur- 
passed him, by showing mankind how, for the 
benefit of all, to justly use two hemispheres. 

I believe that every right-reasoning-mind that 
reads these pages and considers the three prin- 
ciples of government herein described, as essen- 
tially ONE WHOLE FRAMEWORK, will be con- 
vinced that the most destructive features of all 
forms of government, to-day in existence, are the 
vote-buying of politicians, the tax-dodging of valu- 
able wealth- monopolizers and the money-corner- 
ing of bankers. With these pernicious practices 
eliminated, the majority of our minor evils will 
dissappear and noble ideals, in the human mind, 
will be multiplied enormously, without legislation. 
The world will then take a stride along the road of 
Progress, which will bring happiness to human- 
ity in a measure unknown to the most seraphic 
dreams of those departed good souls who have 
worked so loyally and conscientiously, while in 
this life, to promote the welfare of mankind. 



First edition: St. Paul, Minn., Aug. 15, 1913. 
Second edition: New York, N. Y., May 5, 1914. 
Third edition: Pittsburgh, Pa., Jan. 10, 1916. 



Read this book twice, if you would see the "whole 
skeleton." 



"Until the many know their own rights there is no hope 
that the few will surrender the advantages which superior 
intelligence gives them." — DAVID REEVES SMITH. 



Equality of Natural Rights 

LESSON I. 

Has a man a right to life? He has. 

Who is the judge as to whether a man has or 
has not the right to life? The whole people of 
the nation, of which he is a member, acting duly 
and regularly in the expression of their will. 

What is your reason for affirming a man has a 
right to live? The nature of things and the in- 
herent desire to live of all rational beings, force 
me to conclude that a man has a right to life ex- 
cept, when society decrees that in order to more 
effectually preserve the lives of the many, the 
single life must be forfeited. But when society 
is justly organized, no crime will be committed 
which will justify the imposition of the death 
penalty. 

What do you mean by the nature of things? 
The fitness or adaptability of one animate or in- 
animate thing on this earth to another. The fit- 
ness of grass and trees to grow on our globe's 
crust ; the tendency of water to flow down hill or 
to its level; the capability of sand to fit into and 
around a rock; the tendency of this earth to 
move on its axis and around the sun; the dispo- 
sition and ability of man to sustain himself by 
devouring the products of the soil ; the proneness 



8 EQUALITY OF NATURAL RIGHTS 

of plants to seek light; the aptitude of male and 
female to consort; the tendency of lakes and 
rivers to fill up with sediment and a thousand and 
one other things. 

If a man has a right to live according to the 
consensus of civilized humanity, what other right 
is essential to a man's enjoying and exercising 
his right to life? The right to the MEANS OF 
LIVING is indispensable to the right to life. 

What are the means of living? Air, land, wa- 
ter, sunshine, etc., and a voice in the management 
of any material thing which has not been created 
by individual or collective man. 

How can the means of living be justly enjoyed 
by all mankind so as not to impair, in the small- 
est degree, the "natural" rights of any individu- 
al? By adopting a system of ownership, which 
when applied to the MEANS OF LIVING, will 
not unjustly exclude anyone and will assure 
every person an equal opportunity to use the 
MEANS OF LIVING as each sees fit, without 
abridging or interfering with the natural rights 
of anyone else. 

' Are all men born free and equal? They are 
not. 

Why are they not? Because different en- 
vironments make men physically and mentally 
unequal. 

Explain what you mean. When a babe is 
born, in an unnealthful climate, on barren soil, of 
famished and imbecile parents, possessing weak 
minds and diseased bodies, it is not the equal of 
a babe born in a healthful climate, on fertile soil, 



OWNERSHIP 9 

of well fed and intelligent parents, possessing 
bright minds and vigorous bodies. 

What did Thomas Jefferson mean when he 
wrote in the preamble to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence "that all men are created equal?" He 
intended, undoubtedly, to say "that all men were 
created with an equal RIGHT to life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness." He was too intelligent 
to write "that all men are born with equal 
ability." The offspring of the lowest beggar is 
not, generally, the equal, mentally or physically, 
of the child born of intelligent, healthful and in- 
dustrious parents who live in a state of com- 
parative independence; yet, the beggar's child 
has as good a right to life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness, as the son or daughter of the proud- 
est prince in the world. 

How can the babe of a beggar and the off- 
spring of a prince each enjoy its equal right to 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which 
include the MEANS OF LIVING? By establish- 
ing a system of OWNERSHIP under which it is 
recognized, that all real and personal property is 
commonly owned property, and that no real or 
personal property is the exclusive property of 
any private individual, as against the govern- 
ment, when acting duly and regularly as an agent 
of the whole people. 

LESSON II. 
OWNERSHIP. 

Who owns this world? The whole people at 
present living on the globe own this earth and 
every part of it. 



10 OWNERSHIP 

What do you mean by the term Ownership? 

The ownership of a thing is "the right to use the 
thing." 

Does each generation own this earth separate 
from and independent of succeeding generations? 
They do not. Each generation owes it to the 
succeeding generations to do nothing with this 
sphere which will abridge or hamper the succeed- 
ing generations' right to use it. 

By what term in the science of political econo- 
my is the land, air, fire, water, and various other 
natural or artificial elements, entering into the 
composition of the world (excluding humanity), 
correctly described? By the term Wealth. 

What is Wealth? "Wealth is anything which 
may be used or utilized." 

Why so? Because mankind is generally 
agreed that those things should be classified as 
Wealth which are useful to it. Wherever we 
find a human being who has an abundance of use- 
ful things we invariably speak of him as 
"wealthy." 

What is the essential property of Wealth? 
Utility. 

What is Utility? "Utility is that which satis- 
fies a desire or supplies a want." 

Is all the Wealth on this globe owned? Yes. 
It is owned by the w r hole people now inhabiting 
this sphere. 

Have dead generations, or any member of 
them, any right to bind with obligations the pres- 
ent generation? They have not. That is, dead 
generations have no right to prescribe the man- 



OWNERSHIP 11 

ner in which living generations should use the 
wealth of this earth. 

Why not? Because the living generation can- 
not be justly bound by any contract in which 
they have exercised no consent, any more than 
we of the present generation can justly burden 
and limit the rights of coming unborn genera- 
tions. 

Has not this generation a right to make an 
improvement which will extend into a succeeding 
generation? It has, but the improvement should 
be performed with the labor of this generation. 
This generation has no right to mortgage or 
direct the labor of a succeeding generation any 
more than the dead citizens of Athens had a 
right to tell us how and at what we, of this gen- 
eration, shall labor. 

By what term is Wealth which is owned cor- 
rectly described? By the term Property. 

How is the Ownership of this earth naturally 
divided? It is naturally divided into layers of 
Ownership, the highest of which is that vested 
in the whole people of the earth, who own the 
entire globe. The next highest Ownership is 
that vested in the people of a nation, who have 
the highest right to use (own) all the real and 
personal property within the jurisdiction of the 
nation. Within the United States, next to the 
Nation's ownership-layer, is the Ownership of 
each separate state, which is always subordinate 
to that of the Nation. Next under State-Owner- 
ship is County-Ownership which is subdivided in- 
to City or Town Ownership, which, in turn, is 



12 OWNERSHIP 

composed of Ward-Ownerships; and Ward- 
Ownerships are divided into individual Owner- 
ships. Individual-Ownerships, which are inferior 
and subject to all the higher Ownerships, are 
divided into Ownerships according to the lengths 
of the terms; as, for life, for years, for months, 
for weeks, for days, etc. 

Who owns that rock lying in the road? The 
whole people of the earth. 

But the whole people of this earth cannot 
approach the rock, let alone use it. True. But 
they can justly decide what individual shall own 
or use the rock, by enacting a law, duly and regu- 
larly, decreeing that the person who will pay the 
rent on the highest valuation of the rock into the 
public treasury is the person who shall use it. 

Why pay the rent into the public treasury? 
Because the whole people of the world own the 
rock. 

Why not, then, pay the rent for the rock into 
the treasury of the world? Because there is as 
yet no public treasury of the world and, besides, 
each nation has so many rocks of its own that it 
does not care about the use of one such rock as 
that in the road, which has little or no value. 

Is the ownership of the land and everything 
which comes from it the same as the ownership 
of the rock? It is ; and every piece of rock, wood, 
iron, land, gold, air, water, sunshine, moonshine, 
or the whole of such things on this globe, belongs 
to x the whole people; and every individual on 
earth owns an undivided share in these things, 
just as tenants-in-common own real property un- 



OWNERSHIP 13 

der statute law. As these things cannot be divid- 
ed into infinitesimal particles and the particles 
given to each individual owner, the ownership of 
each individual is respected and exercised when 
any of these things is rented out fairly to the 
highest bidder and the rent expended in public 
improvements for the benefit of each individual 
owner in the Nation. 

How can the various Ownerships of indi- 
viduals, districts, cities, counties, states and 
nations be reconciled and enforced? By requir- 
ing each subordinate ownership to give way, 
w T hen it interferes with the exercise of a higher 
ownership, and by compelling every individual 
owner of wealth (which is anything useful) to 
pay rent or public taxes, annually, at a two per 
cent rate on the full value of the wealth he is 
using or owning, into the public treasury. 

Would requiring an individual owner to give 
way to the ownership of the town or some other 
higher ownership, effect the individual-owner a 
hardship? It might, in some cases; but as the 
basic principle of our form of republican-demo- 
cratic government is "doing the greatest good to 
the greatest number" the individual's welfare 
must be subordinated to the welfare of the great- 
est number. Yet, wherever an individual is 
effected an injury, in this manner, he is entitled 
to reasonable compensation by due process of 
law. "Private property is at the same time com- 
mon property." 

Can the private ownership of property be 
justly abolished? It cannot. 



14 OWNERSHIP 

Why not? Because private ownership is the 
right of an individual to use some part of the 
common estate on which he should pay a two per 
cent tax or rent on its full value; but such pri- 
vate property is always subject to the people's 
higher right to take said property for public 
purposes, at any time, provided said individual is 
duly and regularly compensated therefor. 

Does every man "naturally" own any part of 
this earth as much as any other man? He does. 

Does each man own all this earth as much as 
any other man? He does. 

Can one man justly own more of this earth 
than another? He can, provided he pays higher 
public rent or a two per cent tax on a higher 
valuation of it, than what any other man or men 
can or will pay to the people for the property. 

Can this earth be divided so that each man 
can get his equal physical share? It cannot. But 
it can be divided on a BASIS OF VALUE, in such 
a manner, that each man can get very nearly the 
exact share of the valuable earth to which he is 
naturally and justly entitled, according to his 
ability to pay public rent or taxes on the full 
value of the quantity of the people's wealth which 
he desires to use. 

What do you mean by the use of the term 
Value in such a division of the earth? I mean 
PURCHASING-POWER which may be described 
as a relation between men and property. 

Are Value and "purchasing-power" identical? 
They are. 

Can you further elucidate "purchasing- 



OWNERSHIP 15 

power"? Purchasing-power shows the relation 
between the owners of property on one side and 
the not-owners of property on the other side, 
in their efforts to obtain possession of the prop- 
erty. The greater the advantages to be derived 
from the possession of the property by its own- 
ers, the greater is the purchasing-power exer- 
cised by said owners, and vice versa. Any prop- 
erty which is high in purchasing-power enables 
its owner to accomplish his purposes, such as 
making contracts with laborers or obtaining 
possession of other property, with much more 
ease than can an owner of property which is low 
in value. While it may be good for an individual- 
owner to have the things he owns high in value, 
it is not good for those who own none of such 
things. "Whoever has anything scarce and de- 
sirable, which another is willing or able to buy, 
has purchasing-power/' 

Is high purchasing-power or value good for all 
owners of property? It is for the owners when 
they are few in number, but if everyone possessed 
an equal quantity of valuable wealth it would 
then make no difference, whether or not the 
purchasing-power of property was high or low. 
As it is impossible to enable everyone to possess 
an equal quantity of valuable wealth, for any 
conceivable length of time, it is better for the 
majority of mankind to have the "purchasing- 
power" of property low ; otherwise, the scheming, 
grasping, and provident part of humanity will 
exercise too great advantages over their fellow 



16 OWNERSHIP 

beings, who are less scheming, grasping and 
provident. 

Is high purchasing-power good for the not- 
owners of property? It is not. 

Why not? Because when the not-owners of 
high-purchasing-power-property desire to use 
any, they must give a greater quantity of their 
labor or useful articles produced by them, in or- 
der to get the high purchasing-power-property, 
than they would were the purchasing-power of 
the property low. The less the not-owners of 
purchasing-power-property are compelled to give 
for useful things, the more easily can they supply 
their wants and satisfy their desires, which are 
among the chief purposes of humanity's exist- 
ence. 

By what is the "purchasing-power" of the 
owners of property effected? By the supply of 
the property; the difficulty of obtaining it; the 
desire to possess it and a great many other 
things. 

Do the owners of property strive to keep the 
value or purchasing-power of their property 
high? They do, with very few exceptions. 

In what manner? By limiting the supply of 
their property to the laborers, as many landlords 
do, in refusing to sell their land at a low price, 
measured in either money or labor, or to lease it 
at a low rent. Coal-lords, oil-lords, iron-lords, 
food-lords, wood-lords, machinery lords, money- 
lords, etc., also limit the supply of their valuable 
property in the same manner. 

How can the value or purchasing-power of 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 17 

property be reduced? By establishing a form of 
government under which no one owning real or 
personal property can hold it out of use, without 
annually paying the people a two per cent rent 
or tax on its full value. 

How could you make it unprofitable for a per- 
son to hold property out of use? By taxing the 
owner of the property on its full value, whether 
it was in use or not. 

LESSON III. 
VALUE AND PROPERTY. 

Is it just to tax property on its full value when 
it is bringing in no revenue? It is. 

Why so? For the reason that taxing prop- 
erty, or rather the owner of property, at its full 
value either forces the owner to employ it in such 
a manner that it will bring in a revenue, or the 
owner will be compelled to turn the property over 
to some one who will employ it to bring in a rev- 
enue, or, at least, it will save someone from pay- 
ing a third person a revenue. 

Does the value of property measure or take 
into consideration the revenue being derived 
from the property by the owner? It does and 
more. It takes into consideration not only the 
revenue being derived, but also the revenue that 
might be derived from the property. 

Would the full value of the property show to 
what extent the owner of the property was en- 
joying advantages over those who possess no 
such property? It would. 

In what way? For example: suppose that Mr. 
"A," on an ISOLATED ISLAND, had a cellar full 



18 VALUE AND PROPERTY 

of bricks and his neighbors had none. The value 
of the bricks or the purchasing-power exercised 
by Mr. "A" would be exactly equivalent to the 
value of the things the neighbors would be will- 
ing to give to "A" for all the bricks ; but should 
the neighbors begin to supply themselves with 
bricks from some other source, the value of 
"A's" bricks would commence to diminish and 
continue to diminish in purchasing-power, until 
the neighbors had obtained all the bricks they 
required; then the bricks in "A's" cellar would 
be very much lower in value or purchasing-power ; 
consequently "A's" purchasing-power exercised 
through the ownership of the bricks, would be 
very much reduced. In this way the advantages 
which "A" at first enjoyed by his high purchas- 
ing-power through the ownership of the bricks, 
would be displayed in their high value, and the 
diminished advantages would be shown in the 
lower value of the bricks, within "A's" cellar 
after the neighbors had supplied themselves with 
bricks from another source. 

Would the fall in the value of the bricks make 
them any less useful? The reduction in the pur- 
chasing-power exercised by "A" through the 
ownership of the bricks, would make them less 
useful as CAPITAL with which to engage in a 
mercantile or industrial enterprise. But so far as 
satisfying a man's need for houses or supplying 
his want for shelter, they would be none the less 
useful. 

Do all things possessing the attribute of util- 
ity always have the relation expressed by value? 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 19 

They do not. Air for instance is very useful but 
it has no value. 

Why has air no value? Because the supply of 
air is unlimited and, up to the present, no man 
has been able to fence it off or reserve a part for 
himself or others, or to keep enough of it out of 
use to force others needing air to suffer for the 
want of it ; as the owners of land, oil, coal, wood, 
flour, sugar, etc., do with the latter articles. Air 
in its natural state, heretofore, has not been 
monopolized so as to reduce any person's supply 
of it. 

But, am I not paying more rent for the room 
I occupy on the front street, than do the tenants 
pay for the rooms they occupy in the rear, where 
the air is not so good? While you may give more 
rent for your room and on that account have 
access to better air than the occupants of rear 
rooms, you pay the extra rent because of the 
location of your room and its equipment. You 
can go into the street any time and obtain all 
the fresh air you need or desire for nothing; but 
to occupy a particular room owned by your land- 
lord, you must pay the landlord's price, because 
the supply of rooms is kept small by tax-dodging 
on the part of the owners of rooms and the own- 
ers of other valuable wealth who frequently 
object to the supply of rooms becoming so plenti- 
ful as to enable such room-renters as you, to have 
rooms of your own, and, much less, whole houses. 
If the landlords and other lords were forced, by 
law, to pay the people a two per cent annual tax 
or rent on the full value of their houses, lands, 



20 VALUE AND PROPERTY 

and on all their other real and personal property, 
the land would have more houses on it; people 
would not be so closely crowded in cities; labor 
would generally employ itself; and you would not 
be forced to rent from any one ; but you could, if 
industrious and provident, own land enough and 
have building material enough to erect a home 
for yourself. 

Has not the landlord a just right to charge 
me rent for the use of a room in the house he has 
built himself? He has. But the landlord must 
not be permitted to forget that the land on which 
the house stands is the common property of the 
whole people and that the wood, brick, or stone, 
out of which the house is constructed, came orig- 
inally from the earth, which is, admittedly, the 
common property of the whole people; ("The 
people of this state, in their right of sovereignty, 
are deemed to possess the original and ultimate 
property in and to all lands within the jurisdic- 
tion of the state ; and all lands the title to which 
shall fail, from a defect of heirs, shall revert, or 
escheat to the people." Constitution of the State 
of New York, Article I, Sec. 10.) consequently, 
everything taken from the earth is also the com- 
mon property of the whole people. The landlord 
has no more title, in justice, to the wood in the 
house than you, unless the landlord pays rent to 
the people or their governmental servant, on the 
full value of the commonly owned land, wood, 
bricks, nails, sand, and everything else, entering 
into the composition of the house. If your land- 
lord, all other lords, and valuable wealth-owners, 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 21 

were to pay the people the latter's rent on the 
full value of the people's property, the value of 
all kinds of property would become so low, gen- 
erally, that you, provided you were industrious, 
and provident, would not be long in obtaining 
possession of a home of your own, in which you 
could have so many rooms supplied with fresh 
air and sunlight, that no one would be enabled to 
charge you excessive rent for a single room, be- 
cause it has a window through which you can 
look and breathe directly into the front street. 

What has the greatest influence in determin- 
ing the rent charged by landlords for the use of 
their houses? The law of supply and demand as 
reflected in the value of houses. If houses (and 
landlords) are few in proportion to the demand, 
the rent is high; if houses (and landlords) are 
many in proportion to the demand, the rent is 
low. Consequently, those houses which bring 
their owners high rents are high in value, gener- 
ally; and those houses which bring their owners 
low rents are low in value, generally. 

Is it just that a landlord should charge a ten- 
ant any more for the use of a house than what is 
sufficient to compensate him for repairing and 
restoring it to its original condition? It is. 

Why so? Value is the important institution 
or relation through which the people express 
their desires for different articles. If the value 
of hats is A and the value of trousers is 2A and 
the value of shoes 3 A, labor in the just state of 
society which I propose to describe, will employ 
itself at producing shoes (3A) in preference to 



22 VALUE AND PROPERTY 

producing hats (1A) or trousers (2A), until the 
supply of shoes is so increased, that their value 
falls to 2 A. Then the major part of labor will 
fluctuate between work at producing shoes (re- 
duced to 2A) and work at producing trousers, 
until the supply of shoes (reduced to 2A) and 
trousers (2A) is so increased, that the value of 
shoes and trousers will fall to A, the value of 
hats, after which labor will fluctuate between 
producing hats, shoes and trousers at the value 
of A. 

Labor, when not interfered with by tax-dodg- 
ing monopolizers and money-cornerers, naturally 
engages itself, by contract or otherwise, at mak- 
ing things which are high in value, in preference 
to making things which are low in value. If 
labor is given fair play by being permitted access 
to the land, machinery, etc., at nearly as low a 
rent as the rent or tax paid by the rich mon- 
opolizers and tax-dodgers to the state, laborers 
would be generally working for themselves and 
would not be engaged at slavish toil for tax-dodg- 
ing capitalists, as is too frequently the case under 
our present social organization. 

Were the tax-dodging owners of land, houses, 
mortgages, machinery, railroads, oil-wells, coal 
mines, patents, contents of grain-elevators and 
cold storage plants, etc., compelled to pay annual- 
ly to the national government a two per cent tax 
or rent on the full value of the various kinds of 
wealth which they are monopolizing, the tax- 
dodging owners of such wealth would abandon or 
sell the greater quantity of the valuable wealth 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 23 

which they now hold — some of which they are 
using and some of which they are not. Industrious 
laborers or workmen, would then take possession 
of the abandoned part (on which the idle rich 
could not pay their annual taxes or the people's 
rent on the full value) and employ themselves. 

When the industrious laborer is given equal 
opportunity in the competition for the use and 
possession of the people's valuable wealth, the 
intelligent and industrious laborer will be the 
person who can pay into the public treasury, the 
highest annual rent for the use of real or personal 
property, and not the rich idler (or corporation) 
who generally collects from the users of wealth 
much more than what he pays to the government 
in the form of taxes, keeping the excess, above 
a reasonable compensation, for himself; as is the 
case under our present organization of society. 

But you have not answered, responsively, my 
question about the landlord charging more for 
the use of a house than that which will suffice to 
restore the building and keep it in repair. I 
assert that the landlord should charge no more 
than what is necessary to repair and restore the 
house to its original condition? The wear, tear, 
repairs, etc., will be adjusted by the landlord in 
the rent charged for the building, which rent is 
regulated, generally, by the value of the building 
and the number of persons desiring to occupy it. 
If the house has no value it cannot be rented; 
and the landlord cannot get back even his ex- 
penses for the wear, tear, repair, etc., much less 
any profit. Therefore, the landlord is justly en- 



24 VALUE AND PROPERTY 

titled to something more than what will suffice to 
offset repairs and other expenses, viz., a reason- 
able profit, which is the landlord's wages. 

But don't you know that the great owners of 
valuable wealth in this country have substan- 
tially annulled the laws of value, by regulating 
the supply of useful things to suit their own pur- 
poses? I do. 

What can you do to prevent the rich owners 
of valuable wealth from regulating the supply of 
useful things? I shall answer that question in a 
subsequent lesson, when I shall explain a system 
of collecting taxes, under which, the owners of 
large or small quantities of valuable wealth, can 
not avoid the payment of taxes or public rent, 
on the full value of their property. 

Have you any respect for the "rights of prop- 
erty"? I have the greatest respect for the rights 
of property-owners and am most fastidious about 
their enforcement; but because a man originally 
came to this country ; ascended a high mountain ; 
claimed all the land within sight; wrote of it a 
description which he filed in a County Clerk's 
office ; or probably notified the Holland Land Co., 
King George or his agent, I do not believe it is 
just to permit him to hold such property in idle- 
ness or to use it only in part, without paying, 
annually, the people's taxes or rent on the full 
value of it ; while his fellow-beings suffer for the 
want of such land and the things taken there- 
from. 

* Are you not an advocate of the single-tax-doc- 
trine? I am not; although I believe that only 



VALUE AND PROPERTY 25 

one single annual (two per cent) tax or rent on 
the full value of all real and personal property- 
should be collected by the nation from its owners. 

Why are you not? Because "single-taxers" 
are men who believe that the full value of land, 
only, should be taxed; whereas I believe that the 
full value of everything taken from the land or 
made from the land should be taxed, as well as 
the value of the land itself. The value of land, 
the value of machinery, the value of houses, the 
value of a ton of coal, the value of a dollar, and 
the value of every material article having value, 
is exactly the same thing, namely, "purchasing- 
power/ 9 If it is just to tax an acre of soil on its 
full value in order to destroy any monopoly in the 
acre which the owner may enjoy; it is also just 
to tax a machine (which is enabling its owners to 
throw a thousand workmen on the human scrap- 
heap) on its full value in order to destroy any 
monopoly of the machine which its owner may 
enjoy. 

The single-tax theory would also permit a man 
to take from the ground a large and valuable nug- 
get of gold on which (when in the ground) he 
had paid taxes while it had been assessed only as 
farm land, without his being required to pay 
taxes thereafter on the nugget's full value, as it 
stood in his shop ; leaving, thereby, for the people 
to tax the value of the empty hole made by the 
removal of the nugget. 

* The single tax theory would permit an own- 
er of oil-land to pump the oil supplied by nature 
out of an oil-well into a tank, and then pay taxes 



26 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

on the value of the empty well; while the owner 
and monopolizer of the oil in the tank, would 
escape the payment of a tax on the full value 
of the oil in the tank, and for which he could 
charge an excessive price to the consumers of oil. 

LESSON IV. 
WEALTH AND CAPITAL. 

What is the difference between capital and 
valuable wealth? Substantially no difference — 
for the reason that all wealth having value may 
be employed as capital, and all capital (which is 
invariably wealth with value, used productively) 
may be used as wealth ; although the term "cap- 
ital" can be correctly applied only to that wealth 
which is "accumulated purchasing-power" in re- 
serve. 

Is a house, a machine, or an acre of soil, capi- 
tal? They are if each is capable of conferring 
purchasing-power" on its owner. 

Is there any capital on this earth which has 
no value or "purchasing-power?" There is not. 
Capital ceases to be capital the instant it will not 
confer "purchasing-power" on its owner. 

What is a capitalist? Any person who owns 
anything which confers "purchasing power" on 
its owner. 

Then a man who owns a hammer and a saw 
is a capitalist? He is a small capitalist, if such 
tools confer "purchasing-power" on their owner. 

According to that, nearly every one owns 
some capital? Almost every one does. Very few 
people are without some capital, but the owners 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 27 

of large quantities of capital have so much "pur- 
chasing-power" at their command, that they ex- 
ercise enormous advantages over the owners of 
small quantities of capital, when the former are 
competing with the latter, in the making of con- 
tracts. 

Is air, land, water, wood, stone, or sunlight, 
ever capital? Whenever they have the relation 
expressed by value, they are capital. 

Could capital be taxed so heavily as to destroy 
its value? It could; but it would thereby be 
rendered useless as capital; yet it could still be 
of use as wealth. 

What would be the result if capital were taxed 
so heavily as to destroy its value. No one would 
want it for the purpose for which capital is used. 
It would be abandoned and not used to assist 
enterprising laborers in increasing the supply 
of useful things and the luxuries which humanity 
desire. 

Is it just to excessively tax capital? It is not. 

Why not? Capital is always some useful 
thing which confers on its owner "purchasing- 
power" and is generally accumulated so that it 
can be used to greater advantage in command- 
ing the services of toilers or the valuable prop- 
erty of other owners. It is generally employed 
to increase the supply of useful and ornamental 
things desired by humanity. To make its own- 
ers pay any more taxes or rent than is exacted 
from the owners of any other kind of wealth, 
having value, and not used as capital, is discrim- 
inating against the enterprising who are gen- 



28 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

erally "capitalists" or the owners of capital. Be- 
cause capital is capital or confers "purchasing- 
power" on its owners, is no sensible reason for 
taxing it any more than other valuable wealth 
which is not used as capital. Taxes should be 
imposed only on valuable wealth or capital, ac- 
cording to the "purchasing-power" exercised by 
the owners, which shows, without exception, how 
badly those who have not the valuable wealth or 
capital, need it; and also the extent of the ad- 
vantages enjoyed by the owners of capital or 
valuable wealth. 

What is the difference between "contracting 
power" and "purchasing power"? Any legally 
competent person has "contracting power," but 
to have "purchasing power" said competent per- 
son must own some more or less desirable thing, 
which has the relation described by the term 
value, and which is more or less scarce. "Pur- 
chasing pow T er" is always ability to buy. 

Is the value of some things ever out of pro- 
portion to their utility? Very frequently it is. 

Can you give any examples? Yes. For in- 
stance: the value of homes have increased out of 
proportion to their utility. When this country 
was first settled in colonial times, an ordinary 
man could obtain allodial title to a simple home 
by laboring one or two months; and in some in- 
stances, where land was free, obtain a home 
site without any labor, but to-day, the great 
majority of ordinary men cannot, each, ob- 
tain allodial title to a simple home by laboring 
several years; and in some cases a long life of 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 29 

labor has not procured a simple home in this age 
of worry and nervous strain. A simple home is 
to-day no more useful, relatively, than was a 
simple home when this country was first settled; 
but because the land, stone, timber, and other 
things, in this country, are more extensively 
monopolized and artificially scarcer in proportion 
to the population, to-day, than they were when 
this country was first settled, the demand for 
homes has increased enormously. Consequently 
the value of a simple home, measured in average- 
day's-labor, is, to-day, very much above the pro- 
portion which the value of homes should bear to 
their utility. 

Give another example. Take Mr. "A" who 
lives one mile from a spring of good clear water, 
which is free to any person who wants the water. 
If "B" carries a pail of water one mile to "A's" 
home and it takes "B" one hour to do it, "B" is 
entitled to some compensation for his services 
equivalent, on the average, to what any other 
average man could earn by working at something 
else for one hour. Now, if the average man work- 
ing ten hours a day, could earn two dollars each 
day at something else, "B" could justly charge 
"A," twenty cents for carrying the pail of water 
from the spring to "A's" home. In this case, the 
value of the twenty cents would be, on the aver- 
age, about equivalent to the utility of the pail of 
water delivered to "A" at his door; but if some 
so-called "captain of industry" or corporation 
(which, with very few exceptions, is a "special 
privilege monopolizer") were to take possession 



30 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

of the spring and compel "B" to pay one dollar 
for a pail of water, and "B" after paying the dol- 
lar were to charge "A" one dollar and twenty 
cents for the pail of water and the carrying of it 
from the spring to "A's" home; in this transac- 
tion the value or "purchasing-power* ' of the pail 
of water, would be above and out of proportion 
to the utility to "A" of the water in the pail, pro- 
vided the circumstances continued the same. 

How are the vast majority of fortunes in this 
country made? 

By forcing the value of (or "purchasing- 
power" exercised by the owners of valuable 
wealth) valuable or not valuable wealth, very 
much above that value, which is commensurate 
with the utility of the wealth. 

How could the vast fortunes held in this coun- 
try and other countries be reduced? By the na- 
tional government collecting a two per cent an- 
nual tax rate or People's Rent on the full value 
of all valuable wealth whether great or small in 
quantity. 

What would be some of the effects of the im- 
position of a two per cent annual tax or rent- 
rate on the full value of all valuable wealth or 
capital? 

It would greatly reduce the monopoly of valu- 
able wealth and materially prevent speculation. 
It would also force the owners of used and unused 
valuable wealth, to actively employ their wealth 
to the best advantage and to refrain from holding 
out of use any valuable wealth, for the purpose 
of compelling not-capitalists or poor laborers to 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 31 

V 

give a large proportion of their labor or its pro- 
ducts, at some future time, for the permission to 
support themselves. It would also have a strong 
tendency to force people from large and densely 
populated cities into small communities more 
sparsely settled and more independent; because 
of the reduced value of land and other necessities, 
in the smaller communities. 

What effect would it have on farming? It 
would attract more persons to agriculture, the 
only industry that can supply adequate compensa- 
tion to its votaries, without fear of over-crowd- 
ing. It would also enable the city-worker, if he 
so desired, to employ himself on the soil, which 
the land-monopolizers would be forced to sell at 
greatly reduced prices; because of the land- 
monopolizers inability to pay the two per cent 
annual tax on their property's full value. It would 
also compel the farm-machinery trust to throw 
on the market the valuable machinery and patents 
which they now hold out of use, by paying 
thereon little or no taxes; it would also prevent 
avaricious farmers from holding in their barns 
and granaries untaxed food, for the purpose of 
keeping up the price of their produce, and it 
would compel grain-elevator and cold-storage- 
plant owners, as well as the owners of food in 
ware-houses, etc., to pay so much taxes on the 
food they were monopolizing or holding out of 
use, that there would be but little profit in their 
monopolizing. 

Would you tax stolen wealth on its full value 
the same as honestly acquired wealth? I would. 



32 WEALTH AND CAPITAL 

Why? Because the important part of stolen 
wealth is not its owner's illegal title, but the 
"purchasing-power" exercised by its illegal own- 
ers. The honestly and dishonestly acquired valu- 
able wealth would alike finally revert to the State 
in fifty years, on the average, if a two per cent 
tax on its full value were collected annually from 
the honest and the dishonest owners. If all 
wealth, in the United States, were taxed on its 
full value, at a two per cent rate annually (ex- 
cepting money, and homesteads exempt to the 
amount of $2,000), valuable wealth would be so 
low in value that very few things would be stolen. 
Crime invariably increases as food, clothing, and 
shelter, become higher in value or more difficult 
to get; and crime decreases, when food, clothing, 
and shelter^ become less valuable and therefore 
less difficult to get. 

What other effects would a two per cent tax 
on the full value of all wealth with value (ex- 
cepting money and the $2,000 homesteads) have? 

It would reduce enormously the revenue of 
valuable-wealth-monopolizers and remove a 
great part of the incentive to accumulate exces- 
sive quantities of valuable wealth, for the pur- 
pose of collecting present and future incomes 
therefrom. 

How could you make the owners of valuable 
wealth pay their taxes or public rent on the full 
value of their property? By compelling, through 
the enactment of laws, all real and personal prop- 
erty-owners to record their property in an as- 
sembly-district recording-office, under the penal- 



WEALTH AND CAPITAL 33 

ty of forfeiting the unrecorded property to the 
first legal citizen who discovered the property 
unrecorded, and who would subsequently record 
said property in his own (the discoverer's) name. 
How could you make the owners tell the truth 
about the value of their property? When every 
person owning real or personal property is re- 
quired by law to record it in an assembly-district- 
office under penalty of forfeiture to the private 
citizen discovering the unrecorded property, 
there will be a REAL PROPERTY LIST and a 
PERSONAL PROPERTY LIST in each recording 
office. On each of these lists, the property-own- 
ers should be directed by law, to place a valua- 
tion on each recorded piece of property, or the 
price in "just money," at which they would be 
willing to sell it. At whatever price they mark 
their property for sale, they should be required 
to pay taxes on that price or assessment, and be 
prepared to deliver . it to the first person who 
would offer them the recorded amount, in money 
(cash) , for it. In other words : the owners of real 
and personal property should be forced by law to 
sell their property at a low price measured in just 
money; or else pay taxes on its true valuation. 
When said owners have paid taxes on the true 
valuation of their property, they can not hold 
much out of use or retain possession of any prop- 
erty they are not profitably employing. When 
our mammoth stores really mark down their 
prices of merchandise, the "bargain-hunters" in- 
crease in number as the prices are marked down ; 
so would it be with the "tax-dodgers," if they 



34 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

were compelled by law to sell their property at 
the valuation on which they are now paying 
taxes. 

Would not a law of that kind confiscate some 
person's property? It would when such persons 
are striving to hold real or personal property at 
too low a valuation for the purpose of tax- 
dodging. 

The government of the U. S. in order to force 
importers to tell the truth about the value of the 
goods they are importing, is obliged to confiscate 
all property valued, in the Bill of Entry by the 
importers, at less than fifty per cent of its true 
valuation. The U. S. Government also confiscates 
any imported article not recorded in the Bill of 
Entry. 

Radical diseases require drastic remedies. It 
is by the means of this "Ownership Record Law" 
and this "Self Assessment Law" that the rich 
owners of valuable wealth, who generally escape 
the payment of taxes on the full value of the 
wealth they own, can be prevented from regulat- 
ing the supply of useful things to suit themselves. 
The public eye should be turned on the tax-roll, 
as the passengers on street-cars are forced to 
look at the "fare-registering-dial," when a con- 
ductor "rings up" a fare. 

LESSON V. 

MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

What is the difference between Wealth and 

Utility? There is substantially no difference. 

Wealth is anything that is useful; consequently 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 35 

all things that are useful are Wealth. "Utility 
is that which satisfies a desire or supplies a 
want;" Wealth satisfies desires and supplies 
wants. Sunlight, moonlight, land, coal, wood, 
bonds, stocks, money, water, mortgages, etc., are 
useful, and to that extent are wealth. But stocks, 
bonds, money, mortgages, etc., to be useful must 
have some value; whereas sunlight, moonlight, 
land, coal, wood, water, etc., can be useful without 
value. 

How is Wealth divided? Into two classes — 
Wealth which has no value and Wealth which has 
some value. 

Name some things which are Wealth without 
value. Air, labor, sunlight, moonlight, some 
kinds of land, some varieties of water, etc., are 
examples. Because they are useful they are 
Wealth; but if they cannot be monopolized; if 
no one desires to monopolize them for the reason 
that they cannot be made scarce ; or if they can- 
not confer "purchasing power" on their owners, 
they are without the relation which humanity 
recognizes by the term "value." 

Can you name any wealth with value? Yes. 
Some kinds of land, coal, wood, bonds, food, wa- 
ter, money, diamonds, mortgages, etc., which are 
more or less SCARCE and difficult to get and 
which confer on their owners "purchasing- 
power," are a few examples of wealth with value. 

Would mankind be better or worse off, if all 
wealth on this earth were deprived of all value? 
All wealth could not be deprived of all value. 
There will always be some land which will have 



36 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

some value, because there will always be a scar- 
city of some kinds of land as compared with other 
land* For example, there has never been enough 
land to supply everyone with a centrally located 
farm, or enough high land, located on a lake or 
river bank, to provide all, who desire such, with 
a lake or river site, either for agricultural or 
residential purposes. There will always be some 
land more fertile than other land; there will al- 
ways be some scarcity of some kind of personal 
property ; and as long as a thing is scarce in pro- 
portion to the demand for it, the thing will have, 
to some extent, the relation known by the term 
value, and therefore all wealth cannot be deprived 
of all value. 

Would mankind be better off if all wealth were 
deprived of 90 per cent of its value? They would. 

Is some value in some kinds of wealth good 
for humanity? It is. 

Why so? Because the value of some useful 
things serves to incite enterprising people to 
make or produce more or many of such things. 
Labor, as a rule, in the business world, does not 
make or produce useful things which have no 
value. The more valuable are certain things, the 
more is the tendency of labor to increase the sup- 
ply of such things. Value also serves to justly 
determine who ought to occupy certain desirable 
pieces of land, by enabling the government (when 
it acts justly) to award such land to the person 
who will pay to the government, rent or taxes on 
the highest valuation, for said land or other valu- 
able property. 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 37 

Is permitting the person who will pay the 
highest rent to the government for the use of 
real or personal property the best system under 
which real and personal property can be owned 
or managed and yet respect the subordinate — 
individual — rights of all the people? It is. 

Why so? Because renting out all the real and 
personal property to the highest rent-payer, pre- 
vents monopolizers from obtaining more than a 
just share of the people's valuable property. 
Monopolizers (who invariably object to paying 
full rent or taxes on the full value of their real 
and personal property to the people) could not 
then hold out of use, property for which other 
individuals (laborers) without such property, or 
possessing only a very small quantity of it, are 
willing to pay a higher rent to the government, 
which is simply the AGENT of the whole people. 

Would this plan of determining TITLE to 
property be better than that founded on the 
favoritism of some monarch or on priority of 
application or discovery? It would. 

Why so? Because kings are too often gov- 
erned by intoxicants and lewd women, in select- 
ing their favorites who, with few exceptions, are 
the least competent of all persons to employ real 
and personal property to its greatest advantage. 
Priority of application, discovery, or possession, 
is entitled to no consideration when the appli- 
cants for the people's property are willing to com- 
pete openly and fairly for its possession, by each 
offering the highest rent for it that he can afford 
to pay. But when several applicants desire the 



38 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

same property and refuse to compete for the use 
of it, then priority of application, discovery, or 
possession, should be resorted to, in order to 
enable the first applicant, discoverer, or possessor, 
to use the property. In all competitive cases, the 
legal citizen who will pay the highest annual rent 
or an annual two per cent tax on the highest 
valuation of the property to the people for the 
use of the property, whether it be real or per- 
sonal, should have it. 

What would be the difference between an 
annual two per cent payment on the highest 
valuation of an acre of soil, and the highest 
annual money rent for said acre of soil? No 
difference. 

Why not? Because, if a landlord were to rent 
an acre of soil to whomever would pay him the 
highest rent, he would receive the same amount 
of money, whether he let the acre on a two-per- 
cent rent, or tax on the highest valuation of the 
acre, or for the highest annual cash rent. Both 
cases would result in his receiving the Same 
amount of money; for the reason that it would 
be exactly the same to the tenant, whether he 
paid on the highest valuation or gave the highest 
annual cash rent. 

The tenant would calculate what amount of 
money he could afford to pay for the acre and 
would then calculate that said amount was two 
per cent on a certain valuation. 

If he agreed to pay ten dollars a year for the 
acre, that would be the same as two-per-cent on 
a five hundred dollar valuation, which would be 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 39 

the highest valuation on which he would agree 
to pay two per cent per annum. 

Can one man fix the value of any useful 
thing? He can not. 

Why not? Because the value of every useful 
thing is effected not only by what the owner de- 
mands for it, but by what others are willing to 
give in exchange for it and innumerable other 
things. Therefore, two or more persons must be 
present to contract before the relation, value, 
arises. 

Can one man justly fix the price of any useful 
article? Not for the people, when they desire to 
take possession of it for public use, by giving 
to the owner compensation and proceeding ac- 
cording to due process of law. 

Can one man (the private owner) justly fix 
the price for an individual? He can. 

Why so? Because the price of a thing can be 
made high or low, between one man and another, 
by CONTRACT or express agreement, without 
regard to the value of the article, as effected by 
the demand for or supply of the article. 

What is price? "When two things are ex- 
changed, one for the other, each is the price of 
the other." 

Can you illustrate by an example? Yes. 
Should I give my hat to a man in exchange for a 
dollar, the hat would be the price of the dollar 
and the dollar would be the price of the hat. 
Should I give an apple to a man in exchange for 
a potato, the price of the apple would be the 
potato and the price of the potato would be the 



40 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

apple. The man with whom I have traded, bears 
the same relation to the potato that I do to the 
apple; therefore, "when two things are ex- 
changed, one for the other, each is the price of 
the other." 

What mistake do many people make in their 
conception of the term Price? They believe that 
Price is something expressed in terms of money, 
only. 

Is the transaction the same when COM- 
MODITY is exchanged for COMMODITY, as 
when COMMODITY is exchanged for MONEY? 
It is. 

Why so? In the exchange of COMMODITY 
for MONEY, it is generally an exchange of one 
valuable thing for another valuable thing; and in 
the exchange of COMMODITY for COMMODITY 
it is also, generally, an exchange of one valuable 
thing for another valuable thing. 

Is Money essential to the making of all ex- 
changes in civilized nations? * It is not. 

Why not? Because a commodity can be ex- 
changed for a commodity without any money; 
although the owners of the commodities gener- 
ally examine the value of the commodity to be 
exchanged, and compare it with the value of 
some kind of money, before making the ex- 
change. This is the reason why the most impor- 
tant function of money is to MEASURE VALUE, 
notwithstanding the assertions of some econo- 
mists that the most important function of money 
is "to facilitate exchange/' "Just money" meas- 
ures the value of not only the things exchanged, 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 41 

but also the value of many pieces of real and 
personal property, for assessment purposes, 
which have not been exchanged in years. Be- 
sides, in many transactions in which money is 
not used, the traders compare the value of the 
things to be exchanged with the value of money, 
before making the trade. Many exchanges are 
made without money, but few exchanges are 
made without comparing the value of the thing 
to be exchanged with the value of some kind of 
money. 

With what is the value of all real or personal 
property in this country generally compared? 
With tbe value of the money of the United 
States which is composed of dollars and fractions 
thereof. This is another reason why many per- 
sons erroneously conclude that Price cannot exist 
only in relation to money. 

Is Utility the chief incentive in making ex- 
changes? It is not. Utility has much to do with 
inciting exchanges but the most important in- 
centive to an exchange is the VALUE of the 
things exchanged, because each trader generally 
strives to give things with as little value as pos- 
sible and to receive things with as much value as 
possible. 

Does the money of the United States or of any 
other nation measure the value of the articles ex- 
changed by merchants with any degree of justice 
or accuracy? It does not. 

Why not? Because U. S. dollars and the coins 
of other nations fluctuate very much in value or 
"purchasing-power," due to the change in the 



42 MONEY AND EXCHANGE 

supply of or demand for them. When many U. S. 
dollars PER CAPITA are in circulation, their 
value or "purchasing-power" is comparatively 
low; but when few U. S. dollars PER CAPITA are 
in circulation, their value is comparatively high. 
As the owners of U. S. dollars (including the 
U. S. government), can hold out of circulation 
or freely pass into circulation U. S. money, the 
owners of dollars (including the government) can 
increase or decrease the supply of dollars (to the 
extent that they own them), and thereby cause 
the dollars to fluctuate in value or "purchasing- 
power," which makes it impossible for U, S. dol- 
lars to accurately measure the value of other 
things, which themselves fluctuate in "purchas- 
ing-power," on account of the increase or de- 
crease in the supply of or the demand for such 
other things. Because the owners of money (in- 
cluding the government) sometimes freely circu- 
late their dollars and sometimes do not, the 
change in the circulation-supply of U. S. dollars, 
causes a variation in the quantity of value or 
"purchasing-power" exercised by each money- 
owner, through his ownership of one or more 
U. S. dollars. This change in the supply of, or 
the demand for U. S. dollars, makes it impossible 
for a U. S. dollar to possess an exact, fixed, or 
definite quantity of value, for any definite period 
of time; therefore, U. S. dollars can not and do 
not, accurately, measure the value of land, hats, 
potatoes, beef, or any other commodity, which is 
itself changing constantly in supply or demand, 
any more than a yardstick, which changes ma- 



MONEY AND EXCHANGE 43 

terially in length, can accurately measure dis- 
tance. It is the same with all other nations' 
money. 

Would it not be well to have the U. S. govern- 
ment go out of the money issuing business? It 
would not. 

Why not? Because the duty of the govern- 
ment is to regulate the supply of money and the 
value thereof, the same as its duty is to regulate 
the length of yardsticks and the number of 
ounces in a pound-weight. If private individuals 
were permitted to regulate the length of yard- 
sticks, they would make them long when buying 
and short when selling; as bankers make the 
value of dollars high, when they wish to buy 
things, generally; and make them low in value, 
when they wish to sell things, generally. 

Have you any plan under which a dollar that 
will not change materially in value can be issued? 
I have. 

What is it? It is a system of issuing money 
under which the supply of dollars is based on the 
needs of laborers and under which the dollars 
cannot be cornered by private individuals. But 
the present fiscal policy of the U. S. government, 
which is directed and controlled in the interest 
of bankers and other professional money manipu- 
lators, is to increase or decrease the supply of 
money, chiefly in accordance with the needs or 
demands of speculators in Wall street, and similar 
places. 

Will you explain your system of issuing 
money which cannot be cornered? I will in a 



44 DEATH RATE RENT 

subsequent lesson. But, before so doing, I must 
remove from the mind of the average reader, 
many of the fallacies planted therein by a false 
system of political economy, now more or less 
taught throughout the world. 

LESSON VI. 
DEATH RATE RENT 

Why do you fix the people's rent or public tax 
on the value of real and personal property at 
"two per cent" per annum? Because according 
to the best attainable statistics, this nation on an 
average extending over a number of years, pro- 
duces annually two per cent more wealth than 
what it consumes. This surplus "two per cent" 
is what is left after the people have had their 
living, and it belongs to the whole people of this 
nation, for the reason that all the real and per- 
sonal property in the United States (from which 
the products consumed and saved by the nation 
have been taken) is the common property of the 
whole people of this nation and should generally 
be enjoyed, collectively, by every United States 
citizen. This "two per cent" annual surplus of 
the products can best be returned to its rightful 
owners (the people) by expending it in the estab- 
lishment of parks, hospitals, public highways, 
railroads, school-houses, etc., which can be en- 
joyed alike by all members of the nation. 

Would you have the railroads controlled and 
operated by the government? Only in cases in 
which it has been demonstrated that private 
ownership of the railroads has been a failure, 



DEATH RATE RENT 45 

would I have the government operate them. In 
all other cases, I would have them operated by 
private ownership; but subject to the control of 
the people, through a commission elected under 
the system of voting hereinafter explained. Rail- 
road owners should pay the two per cent Death 
Rate Tax on the full value of their property, the 
same as other real and personal property owners. 

Can you give any other reason for fixing the 
people's rent or .tax at "two per centum ?" Yes. 
Taking annually "two per cent" of the full value 
of all valuable wealth from all private individual- 
owners and putting it into the nation's treasury 
would establish a cash-fund or store of products 
which could be used in employing all who needed 
employment, and thereby make up the deficiencies 
in the wages of those unfortunate or improvident 
workers who were not obtaining their just share 
of the commonly owned real and personal prop- 
erty, on account of the shrewdness, enterprise, 
providence, parsimony or unscrupulousness of 
the class known as "large capitalists," who be- 
cause of their talent and ability, under any con- 
dition of society, can generally take extraordin- 
arily good care of themselves. 

Have you any other reason for fixing it at 
"two per cent" instead of one, ten, fifteen, or 
twenty, etc., per cent? I have. 

What is it? If this government were to take 
annually any higher rent, say four, six, eight, or 
ten per cent, on the full value of an individual- 
owner's private property, the amount left to the 
individual would be so small that he would be- 



46 DEATH RATE RENT 

come discouraged and cease to produce more than 
that barely sufficient to support himself and de- 
pendents. It is the duty of a just government to 
encourage its subjects to make provision for ad- 
versity or the evening of life, and to discourage 
indulgence in the extravagance and improvidence 
generally characteristic of those who are provid- 
ed with pensions. Excepting the aged and crip- 
pled, no one should ever be so poor as to be de- 
pendent on government bounty. Two-per-cent- 
rent annually, on the full value of all real and 
personal property, is so low a rate that the en- 
terprising workers or capitalists would scarcely 
notice its subtraction from their wealth; where- 
as, any higher rate would be materially felt by 
the worker or capitalist. Less than two per cent 
annually, would not redistribute the accumula- 
tions of the "opulent capitalist class' fast enough 
to prevent the large capitalists from exercising 
too great advantages over the improvident work- 
ers and small capitalists. 

Can you give any other reason for fixing the 
people's rent at two per cent? Yes. 

Give it. Moses, one of the greatest law-givers 
that ever lived, discovered that, in a period of 
about fifty years, the scheming and industrious 
"capitalist class" would appropriate to themselves 
almost everything desirable, if they were not re- 
strained in some way or manner. Consequently 
he (see Leviticus, chapter 25) decreed that the 
year of the Jubilee should come once in every fifty 
years, when the "capitalist class" were required 
to return, to the original owners, the lands and 



DEATH RATE RENT 47 

homes they had taken from the original owners, 
by trading (legitimate contract or unconscion- 
able bargain) with the thoughtless or improvi- 
dent not-capitalist class. Taking "two per cent" 
each year on the full value of all real and person- 
al property is a much better plan of distribution 
than that of taking, in each fiftieth year, all the 
property lost by the not-capitalist or small cap- 
italist class and which had been acquired by the 
large capitalist class. 

Why not use Moses' method of distribution 
now? Because the "two per cent" method of re- 
distributing the lands, houses, etc., acquired by 
the "opulent capitalist class" is a material im- 
provement on Moses' cumbersome plan, which 
must have caused a great breaking up of the for- 
tunes or trade enterprises of the "opulent capital- 
ist class" in one single year; whereas the "two- 
per-cent-people's rent" could be taken annually 
from the enterprising or insatiable capitalists or 
tax-dodging millionaires, without producing any 
jar to society, as it is now organized. In a period 
of about fifty years, approximately, one hundred 
per cent of the full value of all real and personal 
property (with the exception of the value of 
money and homesteads) acquired by the wealth- 
owners or capitalist class, would be taken from 
them by this "two per cent tax" and placed in 
the public treasury to supply a fund which would 
be returned to the disinherited, in the form of 
employment at making things to be enjoyed by 
the whole people. This would be a scientific re- 
distribution of valuable wealth which would 



48 DEATH RATE RENT 

cause no disturbance to society, and would work 
automatically — increasing as the value of the 
property taxed increased; and decreasing as the 
value of the property taxed, decreased. 

What other advantage would result from the 
collection annually of a "two per cent rent" on 
the full value of all real and personal property, 
(with the exceptions heretofore mentioned) 
from the owners? 

It would prevent the despoiled workers from 
having recourse to violence in order to get enough 
real or personal property to live on. In all old 
nations now existing on this earth, the impover- 
ished class have been forced, at some time or an- 
other, to shed blood, in order to avoid starvation, 
at the very same time the rich tax dodgers were 
revelling in satiety. 

Why do you except from taxation and levy 
under a judgment for debt, homesteads valued at 
$2,000 or less? 

Because no man or family should ever be per- 
mitted to become so poor, on account of their 
having no means of supporting themselves, that 
they are obliged to become a burden on society. 
When every family has a home which can not be 
taken away from it for the nonpayment of the 
people's "two per cent" rent (taxes), or the non- 
payment of debts, every family will be, in this 
manner, guaranteed the permanent possession of 
enough capital to live, with the assistance of a 
reasonable expenditure of labor, in modest com- 
fort. Then, it would not be necessary for the 
government to pension in old age those who had 



DEATH RATE RENT 49 

been improvident in the vigor of their lives. 
Those who will not work should be exposed to the 
stings of poverty. 

Would it be just to permit the head of a 
family to own a home equivalent in value to two 
thousand dollars and not pay his debts? It would. 

Why so? For the reason that all creditors 
would soon learn not to give credit to the head 
of any family because he or she owned a two 
thousand dollar home. A creditor would not 
then expect to sell a home under execution, in the 
event of the head's failure to pay his or her 
debts. With homes exempted in this manner, no 
sensible merchant would give credit based on 
the $2,000 home, or any part of it, to anyone. All 
credit given to a family head would, thereafter, 
be based on property owned by the head of the 
family in excess of the two thousand dollars. 
Homes above two thousand dollars in value, 
should pay public rent or taxes on the excess 
value and be subject to levy under judgments, 
duly and regularly obtained, for the non-pay- 
ment of debts. 

Why do you propose to exempt money from 
taxation? Because money should be permitted 
to flow uninterruptedly through the channels of 
trade, without its owners fearing any loss, by 
taxation. If money is taxed, however little, some 
of its owners will hide or refrain from using it 
openly and freely in trade or manufacturing en- 
terprises and, as a consequence, interfere with 
the money supply and thereby have a tendency 
to change its value. Yet, claims or obligations, 



50 DEATH RATE RENT 

such as debts, promissory notes, stocks, bonds, 
mortgages, etc., held by creditors against debtors, 
and payable in money, should be taxed according 
to the value of such claims or obligations ; but no 
claim or obligation, such as a debt, note, bond, or 
mortgage, should be legal, unless recorded for 
taxation purposes, like any other personal prop- 
erty, in an assembly-district-recording office. 

Taxing the actual money in possession of an 
individual would have a tendency to keep it out 
of circulation and make it scarce to enterprising 
persons who desired to engage in the production 
or manufacture of valuable useful things, there- 
by increasing the value of money, which would 
be disadvantageous to debtors and laborers. The 
government, only, should issue money, and pri- 
vate individuals, such as gold-owners and nation- 
al bankers, should be forced to go out of the 
money-issuing business. But banks of deposit, 
exchange, savings, loans and discounts, should be 
permitted with rigid government regulation. In 
order to avoid doing injustice to either the lender 
or borrower, or the buyer or seller, the value of 
a dollar should be, at all times, the same. 

Can you give still another reason for fixing 
the "people's rent" or public tax at "two per 
cent?" I can. 

Give it. The annual death rate in the United 
States is about twenty persons in every one 
thousand or two per centum, when conditions are 
normal. If the property of those dying annually 
were taken by the national government each 
year, for the benefit of the whole nation, the U. 



IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 51 

S. Government would acquire about two per cent 
of all the real and personal property in the United 
States each year, and in a period of about fifty 
years, on the average, would have possession of 
nearly all the real and personal property in the 
nation. Consequently, this government, provided 
it rented out all real and personal property to 
private individuals, at the "people's rent" or pub- 
lic tax (two per cent annually on the full value of 
all real and personal property), would be in the 
same position with regard to property, that it 
would be in, if it took, each year, all the real and 
personal property left by those owners dying 
annually. 

Who discovered this Natural Law of Distribu- 
tion? The late David Reeves Smith. 

What did he call it? The "Death Rate Tax." 

LESSON VII. 
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 

Why do you lay so much stress on the term 
Value? Because Value is simply the "purchas- 
ing-power" exercised by the owners of valuable 
wealth and is the most important term or rela- 
tion to be found in connection with the Tariff, 
Land, Labor, Money, Capital and Taxation ques- 
tions. 

Why is Value important in considering the 
tariff question? Because, all of our imports and 
exports are, generally, estimated according to 
their value, and the value of either imports or 
exports shows how, relatively, important the im- 
ports or exports are to the American people. 



52 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 

When many things are exported from this coun- 
try, the supply of such things left for home-con- 
sumption is decreased, which has a tendency to 
increase the value or "purchasing power" exer- 
cised by the owners of the supply, remaining in 
the home market. When many things are im- 
ported, the supply of such things in this country 
is increased, which has a tendency to decrease 
the value or "purchasing power" exercised by 
the owners of such things in this coun- 
try. As the majority of people in the United 
States are interested in having the value of the 
things they need or desire to use, low; no tax or 
other obstacle should be permitted to interfere 
with those owners of imports who are increasing 
the home supply of useful things, and thereby de- 
creasing the supply's value, to home-consumers. 
But when an exporter is taking useful things 
away from this country and thereby decreasing 
the supply in the United States and, as a result, 
increasing the value of useful things to home con- 
sumers, he should be prevented as much as pos- 
sible by being compelled to pay an export tax of 
twenty per cent on the full value of everything 
he exports. 

But isn't a tax upon exports prohibited by the 
Federal Constitution? Yes. Article 1, section 
9, paragraph 5, of the Federal Constitution for- 
bids a tax on exports. But said paragraph is an 
unjust prohibition and should be legally stricken 
from the Constitution. 

Why is a tax on exports prohibited by the 
constitution? Because the "merchant-class" of 



IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 5S 

the colonies, who had great influence in the 
Constitutional Convention, were engaged chiefly 
in exporting the products of this country to 
foreign nations; and they had the prohibition 
clause inserted, in order to exempt themselves 
from any export tax that might interfere with 
their exporting business. 

Would not a tax upon exports decrease the 
quantity of things bought from us by foreigners 
and, consequently, decrease the employment 
given our American workers? It would. But 
work is not what our American mechanics or 
laborers want: it is the things they can procure 
by the means of the "purchasing power" they 
exercise through the receipt of their wages, 
whether in money or kind. What our laborers 
truly want is good food, clothing, shelter, lux- 
uries, ornament, etc., low in value. Wendell 
Phillips expressed the idea, when he. said: "Hu- 
man progress shows itself in a fall of prices and 
a rise of wages." 

Laborers can always get all the work they 
want by offering to toil for little or nothing, and 
if they would always so offer, they would never 
be without WORK during any season. If Amer- 
ican workmen, including the soil-tiller, each pro- 
duced one-half as much as they are now produc- 
ing with the assistance of labor-saving-machin- 
ery (and received eleven-twelfths of their pro- 
ducts as wages), they would be much better off 
than they now are; notwithstanding the great 
quantity of their time spent at toiling, while re- 
ceiving for said toil, on the average, less than one- 



54 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 

fourth of the value of their labor-products, in the 
form of wages. 

Why do the leaders of the old political parties 
deliberately force upon the people discussions of 
the tariff question without mentioning the im- 
portance of the term Value? Because they fear 
that a discussion of Value as related to the Tariff 
Question would precipitate a discussion of Value 
as bearing on the Land, Labor, Money, Capital, 
and Taxation Questions. Should the people once 
learn that the most important element in the 
examination and analysis of these questions is 
Value, they would not be long in discovering 
that value is "purchasing power" and that it is 
the" "enormous purchasing power" exercised by 
the comparatively few owners of valuable wealth 
in this country that is effecting our American 
people (particularly the laborers) the greatest 
injury; and not the quantity of time spent by 
foreign laborers in making useful things to be 
consumed by or sold to Americans. The Tariff 
Question has been employed, year in and year 
out, to divert the attention of the American pub- 
lic from the more important topics — the Land, 
Money, Labor, Capital and Taxation Questions. 

Why is this tariff question misleading? Be- 
cause there is no Standard of Value in the world, 
with which the wages received by the laborers of 
different nations can be compared in "purchasing 
power." The laborers of the different nations are 
paid in different kinds of money; therefore it is 
impossible to determine what nation of the world 
is paying the highest wages, without taking into 



IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 55 

consideration the comforts, hardships, expense of 
living, rents, railroad-charges, amusements, sur- 
plus at the end of a year, time unemployed, and 
a thousand and one other things, entering into 
the environments of the laborers of each nation. 

Who are the classes that generally own the 
vast volume of our exports now being sent 
abroad? The same class that generally own our 
land, our coal-mines, oil-wells, railroads, ma- 
chinery, banking establishments, etc., by the 
means of vast quantities of stocks, bonds, de- 
bentures, mortgages, and other obligations which 
are an overwhelming burden on our working peo- 
ple. The surplus of exports over imports now go- 
ing abroad, annually, is not owned by American 
workmen. 

Do you believe that taking off all the tax on 
imports or putting the tax on them higher, will 
relieve our American people from the oppression 
of the trusts? It will not. 

Why not? Because with a high tax or no tax, 
on either our imports or exports, the monopo- 
lizers of the great quantities of valuable wealth, 
at home, in this country, will still extort from the 
laborer (unless taxed annually two per cent on 
the full value of the monopolizer's valuable 
wealth) the major part of his products, in the 
name of Rent for land or other property, Freight 
or Passenger Charges for the use of railroads ; 
Rent or Interest for the use of money controlled 
by the bankers; extortionate prices for the 
necessities of life, etc. 

How would you have the value of our imports 



56 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 

and exports justly measured? By a money 
based on an American Unit of Labor and not 
based on any yellow metal owned and controlled 
by the Pothschilds and their kind. 

Would you not as the result of such a policy 
abandon the so-called "stable gold standard?" 

I would. But the so-called "stable gold standard" 
is anything but stable. 

Would not such an abandonment be injurious 
to American workingmen? It would not. 

Why not? Because the gold standard is con- 
trolled chiefly by the Bank of England and the 
Bank of England is controlled chiefly by the 
Pothschilds. This control enables foreigners to 
juggle with the value of our imports and exports 
and thereby do us, in trading, immeasurable in- 
justice, which the superficial thinker can not see. 
Whereas, if we had a "standard of value" based 
upon a Unit of American Labor, we would be 
enabled to measure the value of all our imports 
and exports by our own "standard of value," 
and in this way discover that we are being ex- 
ploited by great foreign capitalists, who own 
enormous quantities of American land, stocks, 
bonds, debentures, mortgages, etc., on which, 
Americans must pay the interest, dividends, etc. ; 
as well as by opulent domestic capitalists. The 
man who does the weighing and measuring, be- 
tween confiding traders, is prodigiously import- 
ant; but much more so, is the banker or money 
manipulator who increases or decreases, when he 
pleases, the value of gold coins, or other money, 



IMPORTS AND EXPORTS 57 

with which the value of imports and exports is 
measured. 

When will you explain the money system un- 
der which Americans can accurately measure the 
value of their imports and exports and also the 
value of all domestic real and personal property, 
for the purpose of just taxation? 

In a subsequent chapter. As soon as I have 
your mind in proper shape for a correct concep- 
tion of the proposed Just Money, I shall explain 
it. I am leading up to it as fast as possible. 

What do we generally receive in exchange for 
the great quantities of corn, wheat, beef, pork, 
cotton, etc., we send abroad? The rich tax-dodg- 
ing-valuable-wealth-owners of this country, gen- 
erally receive in exchange for our exports, ex- 
pensive jewelry, ostentatious automobiles, pre- 
cious stones, rare paintings, and letters of credit 
which are chiefly used by our American million- 
aires, tax-dodgers, etc., to supply themselves and 
families, when abroad, with entertainment, 
riotous living, and articles of ornament. 

What else is done with our exports? They are 
used to satisfy the demand by foreigners for 
earnings or profits on foreign capital invested in 
this country, or to pay rents on the real and per- 
sonal property in the United States owned by 
foreigners. 

Is this investment of foreign capital in this 
country a benefit to our workers? Generally, it 
is not. 

Why not? Because the foreign capitalist does 
not invest any capital (which is "accumulated 



58 LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

purchasing-power") in this country, unless the 
probability is, that he will take out of this coun- 
try a good deal more "purchasing-power' ' than 
what he has put in. When a foreign capital- 
ist invests one ounce of gold in this country, he 
generally takes back many ounces of gold or their 
equivalent, in "purchasing-power" before the 
elapse of many years. If our government would 
properly and justly regulate the supply of money, 
we would never be required to go in debt for any 
foreign capital; but would always have all the 
American owned capital or "purchasing-power" 
we needed. 

What famous statesman and philosopher who 
lived about six hundred years before Christ, un- 
derstood the necessity of making it difficult to 
export his nation's products, in order to promote 
the general welfare of his people? Solon, the 
learned Athenian. 

What did he do with regard to taking useful 
things out of his country? In " Plutarch's 
Lives" it is written: "Of all the products of the 
earth, he (Solon) allowed none to be sold to 
strangers, but oil: and whoever presumed to ex- 
port anything else the Archon was solemnly to 
declare him accursed or to pay himself a hun- 
dred Drachmas into the public treasury." 

LESSON VIII. 

THE LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

What class in the United States in the last 
analysis pays all the taxes? The laborers who 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 59 

make or produce all the useful things used or 
enjoyed by all the classes. 

How do you prove your assertion? By the fol- 
lowing example: if we could place all the useful 
and luxurious things made by the manual work- 
ers throughout the United States, during a single 
year, in one centrally located pile, and in charge 
of Uncle Sam, the colossal heap would disappear 
in quantities, which would be removed from the 
pile, by bankers, office-holders, railroad-kings, 
brokers, lawyers, merchants, mine-owners, in- 
come collectors, real or personal property owners, 
and other similar classes, who in many instances, 
after providing extravagantly for themselves, 
would leave only a small remainder of the useful 
things to be consumed by the laborers; and if 
there were enough left to sustain the laborers, 
well and good ; if not some of the laborers unable 
to get their just share of the pile, would be forced 
to beg, steal or starve. 

But would not the classes you mention and 
who obtained first chance to supply themselves, 
pay Uncle Sam for every thing taken? True. 
They would hand Uncle Sam valuable orders on 
the pile called "dollars," but these dollars would 
be useless, if they did not have value, or confer 
"purchasing-power," on their owners. 

How did these classes, supplying themselves 
from the pile, obtain the orders or dollars which 
enabled them to purchase from Uncle Sam the 
things in the pile which they desired? Many 
earned them by rendering good service to society 
in exchange, a few legally stole them, and a Darf 



60 LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

of the "banking class," with the assistance of cor- 
rupted legislators, manufactured many of the 
dollars or orders. 

What has this to do with your assertion that 
the laborers pay all the taxes? It shows that all 
the useful articles received and enjoyed by the 
"leisure or non-producing-class" must be sup- 
plied by the laborers, otherwise, any money col- 
lected by the tax-gatherer or paid to stock, or 
other property owners, in the form of rents, 
interest, dividends, etc., is useless, unless it is an 
order enabling the purchase of some of the use- 
ful and luxurious articles, produced by the labor- 
ers. 

On what does the most important part of the 
value of these orders depend? On the "LAW- 
MAKING-POWER," which is generally operated 
in the interest of every class, except the working 
class. 

Is it a matter of importance to the laborers 
what things are taxed when the laborers ulti- 
mately pay all the taxes? It is. 

Why so? Because, when direct taxes are 
levied by the National Government, they are ap- 
portioned among the states or other divisions ac- 
cording to the number of persons, as provided by 
the Federal Constitution (article 1, section 9, 
paragraph 4), and consequently, they do not fall 
upon the tax-dodger with as much justice as 
when they are apportioned among the states or 
other divisions, according to the VALUE of the 
property held and owned within the states or 
other divisions. Taxes that fall on the owners 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 61 

of real and personal property according to value, 
fall with less weight on the enterprising, and 
more weight on the monopolizing. 

How were direct taxes imposed under the 
Articles of Confederation, which prevailed in this 
country, before the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution? Article VIII of the "Articles of 
Confederation" reads as follows: "All charges of 
war and all other expenses that shall be incurred 
for the common defense or general welfare, and 
allowed by the United States, in Congress assem- 
bled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, 
which shall be supplied by the several States in 
proportion to the value of all land within each 
State, granted to, or surveyed for, any person, as 
such land and the buildings and improvements 
thereon, shall be estimated, according to such 
mode as the United States, in Congress assem- 
bled, shall, from time to time, direct and appoint." 

Are indirect taxes favorable to workers? 
They are not. 

Why not? Because indirect taxation is a 
complicated method of taxing the owners of 
property and falls most heavily on the laborers, 
who are the most numerous body of consumers. 
Direct taxation, according to the value of the 
property held by all owners, is the only just sys- 
tem of taxation that can be employed by a demo- 
cratic-republican form of government. 

Should all indirect taxes be abolished? They 
should. 

Why so? Because when the owner of real or 
personal property has once paid the annual pub- 



62 LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

lie rent or two per cent tax on the full value of 
his property, he is unjustly and doubly taxed, by 
being compelled to pay any transfer, income, in- 
heritance or succession tax or rent- 
How do laborers suffer most by unjust taxa- 
tion? By finding it so difficult to live on their 
wages that they are unable to earn and accumu- 
late but little valuable wealth on which to pay 
directly any kind of taxes. Live human flesh 
ought to be the most precious material existing 
under a democratic form of government instead 
of the least so. 

> Is labor a commodity? It is not. 
Why not? Because labor is a force of the 
mind and body which is not bought and sold like 
a commodity ; but is hired and always has a voice 
in the making of the contract, with the employer, 
which no commodity has and should, therefore, 
never be classified with beast, bird, insect or fish, 
which take only what they find: and it should 
never be lowered to a level with inanimate things. 
Is labor valuable? It is not. If labor were 
valuable, it could be used in the pawn-shop as an 
asset on which to borrow money or some other 
valuable thing. No matter how learned a man 
may be or how skillful, he cannot borrow money 
on his skill or learning from a pawn-broker; as 
he can on the valuable watch or coat he may own. 
Do you mean to say that a naked laborer has 
no "purchasing-power"? I do; if he does not own 
some valuable thing. The laborer has "contract- 
ing-power," if he is a competent person; but he 
has no "purchasing-power," except when he owns 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 63 

some thing which is more or less scarce and de- 
sirable. The thing owned may be valuable, when 
sufficiently scarce ; but the knowledge of a man's 
mind or the skill or force of his body is never 
valuable; even though it may be very useful. 

Can't I agree to go to work for an employer 
and at the end of the day receive some valuable 
thing in payment which will then give me "pur- 
chasing-power"? You can; but you don't have 
the "purchasing-power" until the thing is in your 
possession or the employer supplies you with 
some kind of a valuable order. Propertyless la- 
borers have great "contracting power," but they 
have no "purchasing-power" unless they own 
something valuable. 

Does labor become valuable when it finds a 
market? It does not. It is only when a laborer 
has rendered some service or added value to some 
particular thing or things, by making them more 
useful or desirable, that he receives his wages or 
"purchasing-power." The laborer must generally 
annex value to the thing he is working on, which 
generally belongs to his employer, before he re- 
ceives in exchange any value or "purchasing- 
power" in the form of money or wages; and he 
almost invariably receives less in value (It is just 
that he should; because the employer is entitled 
to some wages or profit as an incentive to con- 
tinue the industry from which the laborer is re- 
ceiving his wages) than the quantity of value he 
has added to the thing he has been working on. 

Has labor value, when the laborer is a slave? 
The laborer is valuable, when treated as a slave, 



64 LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

to his owner; but as slavery is an unnatural con- 
dition, it should not be tolerated in any just state 
of society. Labor in itself is not and never can 
be valuable, where each man has the right to use 
himself, limited only by the legal and natural 
rights of others. 

Is labor wealth? It is. 

Why so? Because it can be used or utilized. 

What quality can be truthfully attributed to 
labor? Utility or usefulness. 

What is the logical definition of labor? "Labor 
is any legal effort to obtain an income." 

Why is the word "legal" inserted in the defi- 
nition of labor? To signify that no labor should 
be permitted of which the people have not duly 
and regularly approved. 

What do you mean by income? That the thing 
or things given to the laborer for his services r 
will enable the laborer to exercise "purchasing- 
power" and thereby make it possible for him to 
supply his wants or satisfy his desires. Income 
is an abbreviation of the phrase "incoming-pur- 
chasing-power." 

.Would not a robber, while stealing things, be 
engaged in getting an income under your defini- 
tion? He would not be legally engaged, if rob- 
bery were pronounced illegal by the people. 

Is not your definition too extensive? It is not. 

Why not? Because every citizen should be 
permitted to freely engage in rendering any legal 
service he desires to the people, and the people 
should be permitted to estimate the importance 
of the service rendered, by the quantity of 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 65 

patronage or "purchasing-power" they are will- 
ing to bestow on the worker in exchange for his 
products or services. All competent persons 
should, at all times, be permitted to freely make 
legal contracts. The people by this freedom to 
make or not to make legal contracts, can justly 
express their desire or need for actors, doctors, 
lawyers, ministers, authors, carpenters, shoe- 
makers, draymen, merchants, etc., by the "pur- 
chasing-power" or income received by these 
classes from whoever patronizes such laborers, 
and in this manner avoid all unjust discrimina- 
tion against any legal laborer; leaving, as a re- 
sult, the workfield, freely open, to all desiring to 
serve the people. In the same manner an em- 
ployer should be permitted to legally hire a labor- 
er, willing to legally contract with the employer; 
just as a mechanic's wife is permitted to legally 
buy her meat, groceries, clothing, etc., wherever 
she can buy them to the best advantage. 

Is the possession of great quantities of valu- 
able wealth creditable to its owners in this one 
hundred and thirty-ninth year of the American 
Republic's existence? It is not generally. 

Why not? Because the great majority of the 
owners of valuable wealth in this country are 
tax dodgers, money-cornerers, or vote buyers. 

How would the valuable wealth of this coun- 
try be distributed if tax-dodging, money-corner- 
ing, and vote-buying were stopped? It would 
generally be in the possession of intelligent and 
industrious workmen or laborers. 

Why so? Because the intelligent and indus- 



66 LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

trious laborer, whether a doctor, employer, 
lawyer, merchant, mechanic, pick-ax- wielder, etc., 
under a just order of society, would be the person 
who could pay the "two per cent people's rent" 
on the highest valuation of the greatest quantity 
of the people's valuable wealth. 

What does an American citizen's lack of val- 
uable wealth generally prove? In some cases it 
proves that he is indolent, shiftless, or extrava- 
gant; but in the majority of cases, under our 
present organization of society, which enables 
unscrupulous and enterprising persons to unjust- 
ly accumulate enormous fortunes, it shows that 
the poor have been, in many instances, less selfish 
and wicked and more generous than their more 
opulent brethren. 

What is wages? A laborer's wages is the re- 
turn in wealth or the "purchasing power" he ex- 
ercises as the result of his ownership of the things 
he receives for his services, whether working for 
himself or another. 

How many kinds of wages are there? Two. 
Real wages and legal wages. 

What are real wages? A laborer's real wages 
is that quantity of utility or usefulness taken 
from the products of his labor, which he himself 
enjoys or consumes. 

Can you illustrate by example? Yes. If a 
laborer raises 100 bushels of wheat on some land 
and pays four bushels or their equivalent in 
value, to the government as a satisfaction of the 
People's Annual Rent, for the use of the farm, 
buildings and personal property, and then eats 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 67 

or consumes the remaining 96 bushels, the part 
that he has eaten or consumed is his Real Wages, 
viz., the 96 bushels of wheat. 

What are Legal Wages? A laborer's Legal 
Wages is that part of the "purchasing-power" 
received as a reward for his services, which he 
has left, after he has used or devoured a part in 
consumption. 

Can you illustrate by an example? Yes. If 
a workman raises 100 bushels of wheat and gives 
four bushels to the government in satisfaction of 
the People's Rent and eats fifty bushels, he has 
46 bushels left. These forty-six bushels are his 
Legal Wages and he has a right to consume (but 
not to wastefully destroy), sell, or assign the 
forty-six bushels to another for something else, 
which he may wish to use, consume, or enjoy. 

Who owns the Legal Wages? The laborer 
who made or produced them, subject to the high- 
er ownership of the people, who have the right 
to take, for public use, the forty-six bushels, at 
any time, upon compensating the laborer for his 
services in producing the forty-six bushels ; after 
giving him his day in court; reasonable com- 
pensation for the property taken, and proceeding, 
according to due process of law, to establish the 
value of the forty-six bushels of wheat. 

If a worker or laborer raising 100 bushels of 
wheat annually on a piece of land, were required 
to give to a private individual 60 bushels in the 
form of rent, what should the forty bushels left 
be called? Wages. 



68 LABORER AND THE TAX-PAYER 

Supposing the laborer in this case ate 10 
bushels of his forty bushels, and kept the remain- 
ing 30 bushels of his forty bushels, what would 
you call each? 

The ten bushels eaten would be the laborer's 
Real Wages, and the thirty bushels saved, would 
be his Legal Wages. Such a laborer would be a 
CAPITALIST to the extent that the ownership 
of the 30 bushels of wheat conferred on him 
"purchasing-power." 

What is the general cause of low wages 
throughout the world? The high price paid by 
the users of valuable wealth to the owners of 
valuable wealth, for the privilege of using the 
valuable wealth. In other words: the proportion 
of labor-products that goes to the owners of valu- 
able wealth is too large ; and the proportion which 
goes to the users (laborers) of valuable wealth is 
too small. 

What do Legal Wages in the possession of a 
laborer show, provided he has paid the People's 
Rent or two per cent tax annually, on the full 
value of his property, including his Legal Wages? 

That the laborer has produced some useful thing 
or things out of the people's property, the desire 
for which on the part of the people, is expressed 
in the value of the thing or things made by the 
laborer, or that he has rendered some desirable 
service to the community. Legal Wages in the 
possession of a laborer, evinces that the people 
have no just right (and then only for public pur- 
pose) to take from the laborer his Legal Wages 



LABORER AND THE TAX-PAY0R 69 

without paying him for the labor expended in 
producing the Legal Wages, as determined by the 
value of the things produced. 

Is a doctor, lawyer, or minister a laborer? 

Yes ; whenever he is engaged in a legal effort to 
obtain an income. 

Could any man justly earn legal wages suffi- 
cient to equal the value of a million U. S. dol- 
lars? He could. 

In what way? By rendering a service to the 
people for which they would be willing to pay 
him, as compensation, the equivalent in value of 
a million of dollars. 

Can you illustrate how? Yes. A man might 
invent and construct a number of flying machines 
at a cost of one dollar each, and then sell a mil- 
lion or two at two dollars each: in this manner 
he could honestly and legally earn a million of 
dollars or even more. 

Ought not a man obtaining an enormous in- 
come in such a manner have his income limited 
by law? No. But his income would be limited 
by his being compelled to pay the two-per-cent 
tax annually on the full value of all the real and 
personal property he might acquire by the means 
of his enormous income; which property would 
include the valuable flying machines he might 
have in stock, his patents, his plant, steam yachts, 
automobiles, and all other valuable property (ex- 
cepting money and his two-thousand-dollar home- 
stead exemption) that might be owned by him. 



70 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

LESSON IX. 
INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

What is money? I will not undertake to de- 
fine money. I can only at present refer you to 
samples of it. A French franc, an English sov- 
ereign, a German mark, a Russian ruble, an 
American dollar, a Spanish peseta, etc., are each 
species of money. I shall however attempt to 
define and explain what a United States dollar 
ought to be, in order to effect no injustice to any 
party to a contract concerning dollars, and to 
make it impossible for any private individual, 
owning either a large or small sum of money, to 
restrict in any manner, trading, producing, or 
manufacturing throughout the United States, by 
"cornering" the supply of money. 

Of what material should a United States dol- 
lar be composed? It should be composed of some 
convenient and abundant material having little 
value, and which should not be liable to be scarce 
or to be needed badly, at any time, in the arts or 
trades. 

Why so? For the reason that when the ma- 
terial out of which dollars are made, is needed 
badly to make some other useful article, the 
manufacturers of said articles are prone to melt 
up or macerate said dollars, in order to obtain 
the material composing them, for use in their art 
or trade. For instance: if dollars are made out 
of copper and the supply of copper out of which 
to make copper-valves is scarce, manufacturers 
of copper-valves will be disposed to convert the 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 71 

copper dollars into copper- valves, and thereby 
make the remaining copper dollars in circulation 
less in supply, and so great in value, that the 
prices of commodities will generally fall, provided 
that the demand for dollars does not decrease, 
when measured by said dollars; even though the 
conversion of the copper dollars into copper valves 
is very expensive to said manufacturers. 

Is this true of other metals or material, such 
as iron, nickel, paper, gold, silver, etc? It is, 
and consequently no gold, copper or paper dollar 
should have as much gold, copper or paper in its 
composition as will equal the quantity of gold, 
copper or paper that can be bought in the open 
market, for a legally coined dollar. 

According to your reasoning, a gold dollar 
containing only one legal cent's worth of gold, as 
sold by the goldsmith, would make a better and 
more serviceable dollar than a gold dollar com- 
posed of one hundred legal cents' worth of gold? 
It would, provided the dollar containing the one 
cent's worth of gold were not too small for con- 
venient handling. 

Then you must believe that a dollar composed 
of paper will make the best dollar, on the theory 
that the quantity of paper used in the composi- 
tion of a paper dollar, would never be employed 
to make up any deficiency in the supply of paper 
used by those manufacturers who are making 
books, tubs, pails, or any other article out of 
paper? I do; provided that the paper dollars are 
sufficiently protected from counterfeiting, and 
that their supply is so regulated, that the owners 



72 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

of paper dollars are not enabled to hamper trade 
and enterprise, by increasing the supply of paper 
dollars when said owners of paper dollars had 
something to sell, or by decreasing the supply 
when said owners desire to purchase something; 
and in this manner get something for little or 
nothing. 

Is not the value of 25.8 grains of gold (stand- 
ard fine) even when uncoined, equal to that of 
25.8 grs. gold (standard fine) with the govern- 
ment stamp thereon? It is ; but that is because 
the owner of the uncoined gold can have the gov- 
ernment stamp placed on it, free of charge. If 
25.8 grs. of iron could be coined by its owner into 
a dollar, free of charge, no owner of iron would 
sell 25.8 grs. of iron, in this country, for less 
than one dollar. 

Can the government fix the value of gold or 
silver? It cannot; but it can fix the price it wiU 
pay for either gold or silver; or substantially the 
same thing, by permitting the owners of either 
gold or silver to coin a definite quantity of either 
metal into dollars, free of charge. 

But if the owners of gold were denied the 
"free-coinage" privilege by this .governments 
they could have their gold coined into money, 
free of charge, in foreign mints. True. But if 
they took their gold to England to have it coined 
into money, they could mix in only one-twelfth 
alloy; whereas under this government they are 
permitted to mix in one-tenth alloy. As a result, 
the "money-price of their gold would be less in 
England than here. 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 73 

But the value of the pure gold, without alloy, 
might be more in England than here? True, it 
might. Yet no one knows whether it is or not; 
because there is no just STANDARD OF 
VALUE, by which we can measure the value of 
pure gold in England and compare it with the 
value of pure gold in the United States. 

Could the present exchanges and enterprises 
of society be conducted without government is- 
sued dollars? They could (but rather awkward- 
ly) if everyone in society kept his or her promise 
and everyone believed in everyone else's promise. 

How could exchanges be conducted without 
government issued dollars? By each competent 
contractor issuing a piece of paper signed by him- 
self, which stated the number of days he would 
work for the bearer or legal owner of* the piece 
of "signed paper." 

But if private individuals were to issue such 
pieces of paper, would there not be much confu- 
sion and dissatisfaction in society? There would. 

Why so? Because, when the signers of said 
pieces of paper died or disappeared, there would 
be no one to fulfill the promises ; and some of the 
promissors might dishonestly issue more oi the 
"promises of days' work" written on paper, than 
those which they could or would be willing to per- 
form. This would have a tendency to constantly 
decrease the value of such "promises on paper," 
and this decrease in value would discourage many 
persons in their efforts to possess and save such 
"promises of day's work," or to engage in various 



74 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

useful enterprises with their assistance: besides, 
unnecessarily inciting speculation. 

Should the scarcity of dollars ever be per- 
mitted to limit industrial enterprises of any 
kind? They should not. 

Why not? Because new valuable dollars can 
be issued by a truly republican government, with- 
out the intervention of private individuals or cor- 
porations, as long as they are necessary, provided 
they are composed of paper and the supply of the 
dollars is regulated by an intelligent public ser- 
vant (a secretary of the treasury of the U. S. con- 
trolled by Perpetual Voting) of the people, in ac- 
cordance with the "Labor Unit" hereinafter ex- 
plained. 

Is not the value of such an abundant material 
as paper too low to answer the purpose of a dol- 
lar which can perform all the functions of money? 
It is not. 

Why not? Because the lower the value of a 
convenient material, out of which dollars are 
made, the less disposed will be men, who are 
manufacturing articles of utility out of that con- 
venient material or paper, to use said convenient 
material or paper dollars for other than money 
purposes, in order to obtain the small quantity 
of convenient material or paper used in the com- 
position of said dollars. 

Can you illustrate by an example? Yes. If 
some manufacturer were making boxes, books, 
or pails, out of paper, and it cost the U. S. gov- 
ernment one mill to buy the paper composing a 
U. S. paper dollar, and if about 99 per cent of 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 75 

the value of the paper dollar were due to the en- 
actment of law, no paper box, book, or pail manu- 
facturer could afford to take the one mill's worth 
of paper, composing the paper dollar, and convert 
it into paper boxes, books, or pails ; for the reason 
that the paper boxes, books, or pails would not 
sell for enough money to compensate the manu- 
facturer for his loss of about 99 per cent of the 
value, in the dollar, due to the law, in order to 
acquire a quantity of paper which could be 
bought in the paper-market for one-tenth of a 
cent. 

Is the same reasoning true of gold? It is. 

Why so? Because if a gold dollar were com- 
posed of a quantity of gold which could be pur- 
chased in an uncoined state in the open market 
for one legal copper cent and about 99 per cent 
of the value of such a gold dollar depended on the 
"legal tender power" invested in said gold dollar, 
by law, no goldsmith or other manufacturer 
would melt up such a gold dollar, in order to ob- 
tain approximately one-fourth of a grain of gold ; 
but he would, in preference, buy a quantity of 
uncoined gold in the open gold-market with a 
coined gold dollar or some other legal dollar, 
which quantity of gold would excel greatly, in 
value and in quantity, the (about one-fourth of 
a grain of gold) quantity of gold contained in 
the coined gold dollar, when melted or reduced to 
bullion. 

Why do you know that a convenient material 
having very little value answers the purposes of 
"dollar material" better than any other substance 



76 IND U STKJLAL BLOOD 

high in value and comprising very little bulk? 

For the reason that if any U. S. dollar contains as 
much or nearly as much of any metal or other 
material as can be purchased in the open market 
for a dollar, whenever manufacturers or money- 
speculators, abroad or at home, needed the ma- 
terial used in the composition of the U. S. dol- 
lar, the foreign or domestic manufacturers or 
speculators would melt up or macerate said U, S. 
dollars for the purpose of converting the material 
composing them, into some article, for which the 
speculators or manufacturers require the ma- 
terial, every time the material used in the com- 
position of said dollar becomes sufficiently scarce 
to make its value high enough to induce the melt- 
ing up or maceration of said U. S. dollars. With 
a cent's worth, or less, of any convenient material 
made into a dollar, by law, the value of that ma- 
terial must go very high, before any foreign or 
domestic manufacturer or speculator could afford 
to destroy 99 per cent of the "purchasing power" 
or value in the dollar, due to the enactment of the 
government or the people, in order to obtain one 
cent's worth of said material. Consequently, the 
less the value of any material used in the com- 
position of a dollar, the more probable is said dol- 
lar to be kept at home, in this nation, for the pur- 
pose of transacting American domestic business ; 
thereby tending to keep the dollar supply in the 
home-country sufficiently large to meet all de- 
mands, with much less liability to fluctuation in 
value or "purchasing-power," than would be the 
case were the material composing the U. S. dollar 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 77 

equal in value to the quantity of the same ma- 
terial, which could be bought in the open market 
with a legal dollar. 

No sensible person or government would use 
sixteen ounces of gold to make a pound-weight 
when sixteen ounces of steel would better answer 
the purpose. 

Do not the advocates of the "gold standard" 
affirm that the only dollar which is an "HONEST 
DOLLAR" is that which is composed of a "hun- 
dred cents' worth" of gold? They do; but they 
do not know what they are talking about, when 
they make such an assertion ; or else they are de- 
liberate fabricators. 

Why do they not? Because when they talk 
about "one hundred cents' worth" they must 
have reference to one hundred "gold cents" and 
as no one ever saw a gold cent, they certainly do 
not talk rationally when they discuss a cent 
which no one has ever seen. 

Might they not refer to United States cents 
composed of 95 per cent copper and 5 per cent tin 
and zinc? If they did they would still be irration- 
al, because the material out of which one hundred 
copper-tin-and-zinc cents is made by the U. S. 
government, can generally be purchased as raw 
material in the open market or junkshop, for less 
than ten legal copper-tin-and-zinc U. S. cents. 

Have you any other reason for asserting that 
paper is the best material out of which this gov- 
ernment can make a legal U. S. dollar? I have. 

What it is? If this government were to make 
its dollars exclusively out of paper, it would be 



78 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

very difficult, in fact impossible, for any private 
individual or clique of individuals to "corner" the 
paper-supply on the government, which is the 
agent of the people, with the same ease that gold, 
silver, copper, or any other metal, can be cor- 
nered. Paper can be made out of so many abund- 
ant materials that it can never be cornered by 
private individuals, so effectually, as to interfere 
with the supply of paper which the government 
might want for money-issuing purposes. 

What effect has the "cornering" on a govern- 
ment, of the material out of which its dollars are 
made? It prevents the government, when oper- 
ated in the interest of the whole people, from ob- 
taining sufficient of the material with which to 
increase the supply of dollars, in order to meet an 
increased demand for money brought about by 
the "locking up" of dollars by bankers and pri- 
vate owners ; or by an increase in business or an 
increase in the obligations payable in dollars, or 
an increase in the country's population; and, 
therefore, makes it impossible for the govern- 
ment to keep its dollars at an UNVARYING 
QUANTITY OF VALUE. 

How should a government regulate the sup- 
ply of its dollars? It should so issue its dollars 
that when the demand for dollars is great, the 
supply of dollars would be great, and when the 
demand for dollars is small, the supply of dollars 
would be small. It should also keep the number 
of dollars in circulation at such an amount that 
the value of dollars would always be substantially 
the same, whether the demand for them was 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 79 

great or small; so that it would at all times re- 
quire the same average QUANTITY OF LABOR 
to obtain a dollar. 

Money is the "industrial blood" which imparts 
to our industrial system activity; and its supply 
and value should not be regulated by private in- 
dividuals. Congress alone (as provided by the 
Constitution) acting as an agent of the whole 
people, legally has the power to "coin money and 
regulate the value thereof." (See Federal Consti- 
tution, Article I, Sec. 8.) 

Would not dollars naturally go up in value, if 
the demand for them were increased? Not if the 

supply of dollars was increased fast enough to 
meet the demand. 

What other purpose should a government, is- 
suing dollars, have in view? It should so issue 
its dollars and so withdraw them from circula- 
tion, that any competent laborer with valuable 
assets, or who is willing to work, would never be 
obliged to abandon any industrial enterprise, 
which would be a benefit to society, on account 
of his inability to obtain dollars. 

What other policy should a government strive 
to pursue with regard to issuing money or dol- 
lars? It should aim to have its dollars always 
come out through the hands of MANUAL LA- 
BORERS who had rendered a service to the gov- 
ernment by performing manual work, except 
when the government calls in whatever bonds it 
desires, in order to replace them with dollars, 
when attempting to prevent a "money corner." 



80 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

Should a republican form of government at 
any time issue any kind of bonds? Yes. It 
should issue bonds (exempt from taxation be- 
cause the bonds will be a special part of the Just 
Money system) of small denominations paying 
two per cent annual interest, . and in whatever 
amount the people wanted them. 

For what reason? To provide the people with 
a safe investment into which to place their sav- 
ings and at the same time to enable the govern- 
ment to rapidly increase the supply of dollars in 
circulation, by calling in bonds and paying them 
off, AT ANY TIME, in order to counteract any 
"corner" in money that may be attempted on the 
part of "financial sharps," who desire to increase 
the value of dollars circulating among the people 
and thereby reduce generally the prices of com- 
modities. 

Do you believe it is a good policy for all the 
nations of the world to base their financial sys- 
tems on gold? Most decidedly not. 

Why not? For the reason that, when all the 
nations of the world are on a gold basis, a financial 
difficulty in one produces a disturbance in all. It 
would not be well for humanity to have each na- 
tion's water-reservoirs connected with every 
other nation's ; because, in the event of such con- 
nection, a purification of one nation's water sup- 
ply, would have a tendency to contaminate all 
other nations' water supply. 

Does raising the rate of discount or interest 
charged for the use of money or lowering it, as 
is the practice of the Bank of England, regulate 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 81 

the supply of money in a manner that best meets 
the requirements of trade? It does not. 

Why not? Because the Bank of England 
raises its rate of interest at a time the people are 
withdrawing their deposits for the purpose of 
meeting the increased demands of trade. That 
is, when the necessity for money is increasing as 
shown in the withdrawal of deposits, the bank 
increases the rent for money and thereby in- 
creases the necessity for it; instead of relieving 
the strain, as would be its duty were it a public 
institution. Money should not be considered in 
the same class with vegetables, whose value is 
high when their supply is scarce and whose value 
is low when the supply is plentiful : dollars are an 
artificial construction, designed to measure 
VALUE and facilitate exchange; just as pound- 
weights measure the weight of bodies and facili- 
tate exchange. The Bank of England's financial 
policy is like that of a government which owned 
all the wagons of a country and whenever the 
people needed many wagons with which to ex- 
change their labor-products, one with another, 
-would raise the rent for its wagons and thereby 
restrict trading; and, when the people had no de- 
sire to exchange their products, would lower the 
rent for wagons. 

But is not that what men do to-day with 
horses, carriages, automobiles, etc., viz., raise the 
price as the demand for them increases? Certain- 
ly. But the original makers or producers of these 
things expended flesh and blood in their produc- 
tion. Whereas, the Bank of England (which is 



82 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

only a quasi-public institution) acquired the most 
important part of the value of its pounds, shill- 
ings and pence, (not by expending the flesh and 
blood of bankers but) by legislation, which en- 
ables the bank to regulate the value of English 
money (and related money) to suit its own pur- 
pose. The power to regulate the value of money 
is too prodigious a power to trust to private indi- 
viduals or corporations. 

The power to raise and lower the interest-rate 
by the Bank of England, enables its governors to 
levy any tribute they please on trade or exchange. 

Does such a government as the United States 
ever require credit from any private individual? 
It does not. 

Why not? Because the government of the 
United States, or any other just government, 
founded on the consent of the people, never needs 
to borrow (that which it already owns) from 
private individuals any of the dollars which the 
government itself has already made or can make. 
Whatever kind of a dollar a just republic issues 
(provided the supply is properly regulated), how- 
ever cheap the material out of which the dollars^ 
are made, the instant the government (by exer- 
cising its sovereign power, viz., "the right to de- 
fine the right and enforce the decision") makes 
said dollars full-legal-tender (that is, decrees that 
the dollar shall discharge debts ; stop the running 
of interest on a debt after the tender has been 
made; throw the costs of court on the creditor 
refusing to take said dollars in payment of debt ; 
and perform all the functions possible to any oth- 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 83 

er legal coin or dollar; besides declaring that the 
dollar shall be received in payment of taxes and 
all other obligations to the government) that 
instant, the government will be independent of 
all private individuals owning money; and it will 
not be required to go to any private individual 
and borrow the identical dollars which the gov- 
ernment itself at some former time has issued, 
or to which it has annexed its stamp. 

Why do bankers and money manipulators 
want the government to borrow, over and over 
again, the same dollars from private owners of 
money? To keep the value of their dollars as 
high as possible. 

Which is the more powerful and permanent : a 
private individual or a just government? The 
just government when it is founded on the con- 
sent of the people. 

Why then does a great and powerful govern- 
ment, like the United States, ask credit (which 
is time in which to give to an owner some useful 
or valuable thing for some other useful or valu- 
able thing which has been bought by the pur- 
chaser or borrowed by the bailee or borrower, 
either with or without compensation for the use 
of the thing bought or borrowed) from any pri- 
vate individual, either for dollars or anything 
else, when the U. S. Government has the highest 
title to all the real and personal property in this 
country? Because it serves the purposes of the 
vote-buying, tax-dodging and money-cornering 
classes, to instil in the minds of the people, with 
the assistance of some pupils, some schools, many 



84 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

colleges, newspapers and magazines, the false and 
erroneous idea, that a just and powerful govern- 
ment, resting on the will of the people, can not 
issue a valuable dollar, unless said dollar at some 
time or another is exchanged for the gold or silver 
owned by private individuals. 

Is this true? It is not true. 

Why is it not true? For the reason that a 
government founded on the consent of the peo- 
ple and truly representing their wishes, has the 
legal and natural right to take for public use, any 
piece of private property, either real or personal, 
that it requires at any time, provided the owner 
of the private property is justly compensated 
therefor by the receipt of legal dollars issued in 
payment by the government; and which are 
equivalent in value to the value of the property 
taken. 

On what is this just and natural principle 
founded? On the theory that the welfare of the 
people is of greater importance than the welfare 
of any private individual or clique of individuals, 
when regularly and duly judged by the people, in 
the exercise of their sovereignty, through their 
agent the Government of the U. S. or any of its 
subordinate parts. 

Is this principle founded on any other theory? 
Yes. On the theory that the highest ownership 
of all real and personal property is vested in the 
whole people of a nation, when dealing with the 
property within the domain of said nation. 

How would a government like the United 
States redeem its dollars without using any kind 



INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 85 

of private individual's property? By simply re- 
ceiving its dollars in payment of the people's two 
per cent rent or annual tax. The knowledge on 
the part of the people that the United States gov- 
ernment will receive any particular material or 
any particular form of material, in payment of 
its taxes or People's Rent, creates a demand J. or 
that material. As everything scarce and for 
which there is a demand, is always valuable and 
has "purchasing power," or confers "purchasing- 
power on its owner, everyone directly or indirect- 
ly indebted to the government, will want that 
scarce thing which pays taxes or public rent. 

The bankers understand this prerogative, 
thoroughly, and by the means of laws, not com- 
prehended by the masses, appropriate to them- 
selves the special privilege of bringing into being, 
convenient "purchasing power" in the form of 
money. But they purposely misname the "pur- 
chasing power:" "credit" or a "loan." 

Would the receipt of a particular material in 
payment of taxes or public rent be a sufficient 
redemption of any dollar issued by this govern- 
ment or any other true republic? It would. 

Why so? Because a truly republican govern- 
ment is the agent of the whole people, and it 
stands in the position of a "perpetual claimant" 
for the payment of the two per cent annual rent, 
due from every private owner of the people's 
real and personal property. If the private owner 
or user of any real or personal property pays 
this year's annual two per-cent-rent, he will, later, 
be required to pay next year's two per-cent-rent, 



86 INDUSTRIAL BLOOD 

-and then the following year's rent after that, etc. 
It is in the nature of things that many people will 
always want, more or less, and consequently will 
give something valuable for whatever the govern- 
ment receives in payment of public taxes or the 
People's Rent. This relation, between the gov- 
ernment and the people, (who are the sovereigns 
having the "right to define the right and enforce 
the decision/') enables the former to create "pur- 
chasing-power" by simply receiving whatever it 
will, in payment of taxes or the People's Rent. 
When the government pays the material, so re- 
ceived, out for services, and the recipient then 
spends it and receives what he desires to eat or 
wear in exchange for it, the material is then 
"redeemed" in the manner that the private and 
subordinate OWNERS OF GOLD OR SILVER 
DESIRE TO HAVE THEIR GOLD OR SILVER 
REDEEMED, in order to keep the "purchasing- 
power" of the owners of the white and yellow 
metals artificially great. 

What is the effect of the government's invest- 
ing a certain form of material (already being 
received in payment of taxes) with the power to 
discharge debts, the power to stop (by tender) 
the running of interest on debts, and the power 
to impose the "costs of court" on the creditor 
who refuses to receive said material in payment 
of debts? The value of the material so received 
is greatly increased by investing it with these ad- 
ditional powers. 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 87 

LESSON X. 
MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

Is money an essential and convenient institu- 
tion as society is now organized? It is. 

What important function of money is only 
meagerly understood by the people? Its function 
of enabling the owners of valuable things, the 
employers of laborers, and the laborers them- 
selves, to make whatever exchanges desired, with 
great economy of time and labor. 

Do the private owners of money ever inter- 
fere with the owners of other valuable things 
than money, when the latter wish to make ex- 
changes? They frequently do. 

How so? By hoarding their money or by ex- 
acting unjust rent for the use of it, from the 
traders in, or the producers or manufacturers 
of useful things. 

Can you explain further? Yes. When a la- 
borer wishes to trade a valuable product of his 
labor for the valuable product of some other la- 
borer, in society, as now organized, he, generally, 
first is obliged to sell his labor-product to a man 
owning money (called a merchant, factor, com- 
mission-dealer, or speculator), who rarely gives 
the laborer enough value in the form of money, to 
equal the value of the labor-product, less a rea- 
sonable profit (plus transportation and other 
reasonable expenses), which can be justly 
charged (as wages) by the money-owner, factor, 
merchant, or commission-dealer. As a conse- 
quence, the laborer receives too small a quantity 



88 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

of value in money for the product he sells. When- 
ever the laborer has given his labor-product for 
money and then desires to buy with his money 
a valuable article to use, the owner (his repre- 
sentative, or middle man) of the article which the 
laborer desires to purchase, extorts too much 
value in the form of money from the laborer, be- 
fore the laborer is permitted to supply his want, 
by obtaining the article desired. Thus it is, that 
the laborer' is generally plucked when he sells and 
plucked when he buys, by the owner of money. 
This explains the expression : "Skinned going and 
coming," as applied, when any laborer trades 
through some of our unscrupulous merchants. 

Can you give another example showing how 
useful money is in effecting exchanges and fa- 
cilitating industrial enterprises? I can. 

What is it? It is the experience of a small vil- 
lage on the Isle of Guernsey in the English Chan- 
nel. The inhabitants of this village wished to 
build a public market and the village board passed 
a resolution ordering the erection of such a build- 
ing; but the board discovered that the edifice 
would cost £4,000 in money and as the village had 
no funds, a resolution authorizing the borrowing 
of that sum at six per cent interest was about to 
be passed, when the president of the board asked : 
"Is there not stone enough in neighbor Thomas 
Doyle's quarry to construct the foundation of the 
proposed market ?" Several members of the board 
answered, "There is." "Hasn't Charles A. 
Grant," again inquired the president, "the brick- 
maker in our village, a plant with which he can 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 89 

supply all the bricks we shall need in the build- 
ing ?" Again was the reply affirmative. 

"Hasn't Alfred Urfer, the farmer who lives 
a few miles out of the village, enough sea- 
soned timber to supply all the wood that will be 
required ?" The answer again was a number of 
"Yesses." "Hasn't E. L. Kinloch, the lime and 
cement dealer, all the other building material we 
may need for the purpose of constructing this 
building?" A dozen asserted he had. "Haven't 
we a number of carpenters, masons, plumbers, 
painters, etc., in our town, who are prepared to 
render the kind of services we shall need in the 
erection of this structure?" As usual, the reply 
was affirmative. 

"Now it appears to me," continued the presi- 
dent, "that if we have the laborers and the ma- 
terials necessary to erect the market, in our vil- 
lage or its vicinity, there is no reason why we 
cannot proceed to build immediately." 

"But," objected a member of the village- 
board, "we must first find some person who will 
lend us the necessary amount of money." 

"Listen!" rejoined the president. "If this vil- 
lage board will authorize me, by resolution, to 
issue £4,000 of paper script on which shall be print- 
ed: This paper script shall be received in pay- 
ment of rent for the use of any room or store in 
the public market', I will undertake to put up the 
building without borrowing a single pound of 
money from any private individual or banking 
corporation." 

What next occurred? A resolution was 



90 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

promptly passed authorizing the president to 
issue the script, and to proceed at once with the 
erection of the market. The president thereupon 
consulted the quarryman, brickmaker, lumber- 
man, lime and cement-dealer, masons, carpenters, 
plumbers, painters, etc., and learned that all were 
willing to take the paper script in payment, for 
either services or material; because the village 
board had agreed to receive the script in payment 
of rent for the use of the rooms and stores, which 
were intended to form a part of the market. Some 
of the village merchants dealing in food, clothing, 
hardware, etc., eagerly announced, that they would 
take, at the face amount, the script in payment 
for their merchandise, for the reason that they 
intended to hire stores in the building, when it 
was completed, and as tenants they would use the 
script received in exchange for their merchandise, 
to pay the rent which would be due to the land- 
lord of the public market, who was the president, 
acting as agent for the town board. These mer- 
chants had no hesitation in telling the mechanics 
and material men that the script would be useful 
to purchase anything in their stores. 

The president next hired an architect, a num- 
ber of masons, carpenters, plumbers, painters, 
etc., and bought a quantity of stone, bricks, lum- 
ber, mortar, etc. With the paper script he paid 
the mechanics each Saturday night; and the ma- 
terial men, when their material had been de- 
livered. 

Within a few months the market was com- 
pleted, the rooms and stores occupied, and the 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 91 

script, which the president had paid out com- 
menced to return to him in the form of rent. At 
the end of two years, all the £4,000 which had 
been issued (except a very small percentage which 
had been lost or destroyed) came into the hands 
of the president, who thereupon called a meeting 
of the village board. 

When the members were all in their seats and 
the space allotted to spectators crowded, the 
president asked: "Is there any material-man., 
present or not present, who holds any unpaid bill 
against the village for material furnished in the 
construction of this public market, in which we 
are now meeting ?" A deadly silence took posses- 
sion of the assemblage. 

"Is there any mechanic, architect, laborer, or 
anyone else, present or not present, who has an 
unpaid claim for services rendered in construct- 
ing this public market ?" Again no one replied. 

"I don't think there is," remarked the presi- 
dent, "because I have a receipted bill, now in my 
possession, for every service rendered or material 
bought, during the erection of this edifice; but 
in order to avoid any possible mistake, I am mak- 
ing this public inquiry for any claim that might 
be outstanding. Evidently all bills have been 
paid, and as I have the £4,000 of paper script, 
which has come to me in the form of rent paid by 
the tenants occupying the stores in the village 
market, (excepting a very small percentage 
which has been lost or destroyed) now in my 
hands, and as the public market is paying the 
village a good net revenue, I wish to announce that 



92 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

the taxes on all village property hereafter will be 
lower. We shall now proceed to enjoy a con- 
flagration." 

The president then placed the script, which 
had been paid in as rent by the merchants occu- 
pying the stores, etc., in a tin pan, struck a match, 
and applied its flame to the paper money. The 
village board and spectators then saw the paper 
script, which had enabled the village to build its 
market ; to give employment to many mechanics ; 
to increase the trade of merchants; and to effect 
all kinds of exchanges in so doing; pass off in 
flame and smoke. 

What does this experience of the village board 
show? It shows that the paper script was sim- 
ply "PURCHASING POWER" issued in a con- 
venient form, which enabled the laborers, me- 
chanics and material men, engaged in the con- 
struction of the building, to exchange the "pur- 
chasing power" they had put into the public 
market (by making it valuable, as the result of 
the laborers' or mechanics' skill, when applied to 
the materials furnished by the material-men) for 
other forms of "purchasing power," such as food, 
clothing, shelter, etc., without consulting the pri- 
vate owners of gold, silver, copper, or any other 
kind of money. 

Can you make this Isle of Guernsey transac- 
tion any clearer? I can. What the village board 
required as soon as they had decided to erect a 
public market was "purchasing power," in some 
convenient form, which would enable the laborers 
and material men to exchange the "purchasing- 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 93 

power" they proposed to put into the market while 
it was in building, for the "purchasing power" in 
the possession of the owners of bread, meat, coats, 
hats, shoes, cigars, etc., because of such owner- 
ship. The issuance of the paper script, on the part 
of the village which had a title, (under the Law 
of Eminent Domain) higher than that of any 
private individual, to all the property within the 
boundaries of the village, brought into being the 
necessary "purchasing power" which enabled 
the enterprise to be carried to a successful finish. 
Because the village board was capable of perform- 
ing its contract, the merchants who expected to 
occupy stores in the public-market were willing 
to accept the paper script and give valuable 
things in exchange for it, on account of theh 
knowledge that the script would have value or 
confer "purchasing power" on its owners," when 
paying for the use of the rooms and stores in the 
market. When the board pledged itself, by reso- 
lution, to receive the script in payment of rent, it 
exercised its natural right to create "purchasing 
power" or valuable money, and thereby supplied 
itself with CAPITAL. Whatever article or ma- 
terial any creditor agrees to receive in payment 
of debts or other enforcible obligations, immedi- 
ately becomes valuable, in some degree, and en- 
ables the owner to exercise "purchasing power," 
if the creditor is responsible. This is particularly 
true of justly organized democratic-republican 
governments. 

Then the paper script was simply "purchas- 
ing power" brought into being by a resolution 



94 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

of the village board? Exactly. Just as a rich 
man can bring into being "purchasing power" 
by issuing a promissory note, which promises to 
pay or deliver coal, wood, meat, sugar, dollars, 
bonds, etc., to the payee; or which the rich man 
is willing to take in satisfaction of any of the 
claims he holds against his debtors. 

What is the difference between "purchasing 
power" brought into being by a nation and that 
brought into being by an individual? The possi- 
bility of a nation's "purchasing power" ever pass- 
ing away is extremely remote, because it owns 
everything within the domain of the nation; but 
the probability of an individual's "purchasing 
power" passing away, becomes a certainty when 
he loses title to his valuable property or when his 
ownership of all real and personal property term- 
inates at his death. 

What is the difference between a negotiable 
promissory note issued by an individual and the 
paper script issued by the village board? In law, 
the negotiable promissory note of an individual 
(which promises to pay money) must ultimately 
be paid in money in order to be valuable and to 
be redeemed; just as a bill of lading, in order to 
be valuable and to be redeemed, must be ulti- 
mately exchanged for merchandise. But the 
script issued by the village board, required no re- 
demption in money or merchandise by the village, 
only in so far as it was redeemed when passing 
from hand to hand, in exchange for valuable com- 
modities; the same as gold coins are redeemed, 
when passed from hand to hand, in exchange, for 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 95 

other valuable things. The simple fact that the 
merchants could pay their rent for the use of 
valuable property to their landlord (the village 
board) with the script, made the paper script 
valuable; and because the script was valuable, 
it passed current in the village and enabled all 
persons receiving the script, who had claims for 
valuable material built into the market, or for 
services rendered by adding to the value of the 
market, to exchange the valuable script for other 
valuable things such as groceries, clothing, etc. 

Was this paper script issued by the village 
board CAPITAL? Yes. It was capital in a very 
convenient form. 

Could the village board have built another 
market by issuing more script? They could. But 
if they built too many markets and thereby in- 
creased the supply of markets beyond the demand 
for them, merchants would not give much rent 
for stores in some of the markets. There is a 
limit beyond which the building of markets or 
the issuance of paper script should not be carried. 

What is that limit? I shall explain in a sub- 
sequent lesson that the supply of money should 
expand to meet the whole of the demand for it; 
and the supply of money should contract when 
the demand falls off; so that the money supply 
will always meet the demand ; no more no less. 

Could the village board have built a railroad 
in the same manner? They could, if the railroad 
were not too large to be handled with the quantity 
of "purchasing power" conferred on the village 



96 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

board, by their ownership of all the real and per- 
sonal property in the village. 

Then what this government of the United 
States requires more than anything else is a con- 
venient form of "purchasing power," which can 
not be selfishly controlled or "cornered" by pri- 
vate individuals? That is exactly it. And when 
this government had a greater supply per capita 
of convenient "purchasing power" (although an 
important part of it was deliberately crippled, in 
the interest of the banking class, by the insertion 
of the "exception clause" on all U. S. notes) than 
what it has now, as it did in "war times," the la- 
borers in this country enjoyed, generally, the 
most prosperity they ever did before or since; 
notwithstanding that the money "cornerers," tax 
dodgers and vote buyers of Wall Street and sim- 
ilar places, affirm that the "good times" during 
the civil war period was a "fictitious prosperity." 
Would that we had, among the plain people, some 
of that "fictitious prosperity" in these days ! 

What error did the U. S. government commit, 
when issuing its U. S. notes? It erred when it 
promised to pay dollars at any time in satisfac- 
tion of the demands of the holders of U. S. Notes. 
The government should only have promised to 
RECEIVE the notes in payment of taxes, im- 
posts, dues, or any obligation payable to the Unit- 
ed States government. It was a mistake, or a 
vicious design, to even call them "notes." The 
law should have made them full-fledged-legal- 
tender-dollars and without any "exception clause" 
whatsoever. 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 97 

How would the village board have fared had 
they borrowed the £4,000 at 6 per cent from pri- 
vate individuals? They probably would have 
paid to the lenders enough interest at 6 per cent, 
when compounded four times a year (as the 
bankers do, when lending money to borrowers on 
notes to run for only three months' time) to 
equal, in twenty years, three times the principal, 
and still owe the original amount borrowed. One 
dollar, plus compound interest, at six per cent, 
per annum, amounts to $340 in one hundred 
years. 

Does this Isle of Guernsey transaction evince 
how private individuals, who own and control 
great quantities of money, can interfere with or 
obstruct public and private enterprises? It does. 

How so? By refusing to let the village board 
have the use of their privately owned money, on 
any terms whatsoever, the private individuals 
owning money, could have prevented the erection 
of the public market; or by lending their money 
at exorbitant rent or interest for its use, they 
could probably have kept the whole village per- 
petually in debt to money-lenders. But the village 
president's sensible idea enabled the village board 
to create sufficient "purchasing power" in the 
form of valuable paper script to build the market, 
independent of the desire for personal gain on 
the part of any private individual or clique of 
individuals. When the script had accomplished 
its purpose, viz., to enable the architect, mechan- 
ics, and material-men, to effect their necessary 
exchanges, it naturally came back to the presi- 



98 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

dent who instead of paying it out again, as he 
could have done, for services and material to be 
used in the construction of another public build- 
ing, burned it up. 

Could the village board in any manner in- 
crease the "purchasing power" of the paper 
script? They could if the general government 
above the village board permitted. 

In what way? By increasing the demand for 
the script. 

Can you make yourself clearer? When the 
village board agreed to receive the script in pay- 
ment of market rent, the script was in vigorous 
demand by only the few merchants who expected 
to occupy rooms and stores in the market. If 
the village board had agreed to receive the script 
in payment of all village taxes, the demand for 
the script by all persons owing the village for 
taxes, or who expected to pay taxes to the village 
at a future time, would have been additionally 
increased. This increase in the number of per- 
sons desiring to get possession of the script, 
would have made it more valuable than when only 
the few merchants intending to occupy rooms 
and stores in the market desired to get it. 

Could the value or "purchasing power" of the 
script have been still further increased? It could. 

How so? By giving the script power to dis- 
charge debts, to stop, by tender, the running of 
interest on debts, and to force the payment of the 
"costs of court" on all persons, who refused to 
receive the script in payment of debts. 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 99 

Could the village board have decreased the 
"purchasing power" or value of the script? It 

could. 

How? By increasing the supply of script until 
the supply of script exceeded the demand for it. 

Is not this power of creating valuable script 
or dollars too important a prerogative to leave to 
the regulation of such a body as the village 
board? It is. 

Who alone should exercise this important pre- 
rogative of bringing into being "purchasing 
power" in the form of script or dollars? The na- 
tional government, acting as an agent of the 
whole people, only, and then subject to the most 
rigorous regulations. 

Was not this script issued by the village board 
simply "credit money"? No: not a particle more 
so than a gold coin containing 25.8 grains of gold, 
standard fine, is credit money, when legally issued 
by this government. The script was "purchasing 
power" actually brought into being by the reso- 
lution of the village board. 

* Can you bring out this idea more clearly? Yes. 
Credit means trusting some one to return a thing 
borrowed or its equivalent in value with or with- 
out compensation. The village board borrowed no 
money, consequently, there was no "credit 
money" whatever in the transaction. When the 
president gave a mason working on the market 
some of the script, as wages, the mason had his 
"purchasing power" in his hands. The mason 
did not agree to return anything to the president ; 
nor did the president agree to give anything else 



100 MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 

at a future time to the mason as would have been 
the case in a credit transaction. The mason had 
increased the value or "purchasing power" of the 
owners of the market, by skillfully laying bricks 
into a wall to form a part of the market. For this 
increase in the value of the market, by laying 
brick on top of bricks, in suitable beds of mortar, 
the president gave the mason "purchasing power" 
in the form of paper script; just as the grocer 
gave to the mason "purchasing power" in the 
form of bread, beef, clothing, etc., when the 
mason exchanged his paper script at the counter 
of the merchant who intended to hire a store in 
the market; and just as the merchant could have 
spent the script for more groceries. Credit al- 
ways implies "time" long or short, in which to re- 
turn something or its equivalent in value with or 
without compensation. The mason did not credit 
the president; nor did the president agree to 
credit the mason with anything. As soon as the 
mason had finished increasing the "purchasing 
power" of the owners of the market, according to 
the contract, he received back "purchasing 
power" in the form of the paper script, which was 
exchanged at the merchant's store for "purchas- 
ing power" in the form of hats, coats, beef, sugar, 
etc. The ownership of the bricks and mortar 
built into the market ; the ownership of the script 
given in payment for the services of the mechan- 
ics ; and the ownership of the food, clothing, etc., 
given by the merchants to the mechanics ; all, 
alike, conferred "purchasing power" on their own- 



MARKET BUILT WITHOUT MONEY 101 

ers without the intervention of any credit what- 
soever. 

With the exception of "contracting-power," 
"purchasing-power" is the widest general relation 
in the whole business-world. 

Then any great government founded on the 
consent of the people and truly representing 
them, can bring into being "purchasing power" 
at any time? It can as long as the government 
adheres to Truth, Right and Justice; does not 
over-produce its "purchasing power"; and never 
issues a promise to pay, but only issues orders on 
its own property, which "orders" it agrees to re- 
ceive and honor at all times. 

According to your theory, a government 
might issue too many dollars? It certainly 
might; because when any government (which 
has the sovereign power to take any property for 
public purposes it pleases, and give therefor, in 
exchange, its own legal tender dollars) issues 
more money than there is a demand for, the 
money depreciates in value, and if enough, too 
much, is issued, it may become useless, except 
for converting the material of w r hich the money 
is composed into some other article of consump- 
tion or utility. 

Then any great government can always sup- 
ply itself with all the CAPITAL or "purchasing 
power" it requires with which to employ laborers 
at any time, if it acts justly and intelligently? It 
certainly can. 

Could the U. S. government supply its people 
with a credit system? Most certainly. But the 



102 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

credit system should be abolished to the greatest 
extent possible, under our national, state, and 
local governments, and a cash system, which 
would not require the payment of great sums of 
interest to the money-owning or non-producing 
class, substituted. 

Why do not great governments exercise this 
power of bringing into being whatever CAPITAL 
they may need? In some urgent cases, such as 
war-times, the governments are obliged to, in 
order to preserve themselves; but, generally, be- 
cause private individuals, such as bankers, money- 
lenders, money-cornerers, stock-brokers, vote-buy- 
ers, etc., by the means of bribing public servants 
and disseminating financial falsehoods among the 
people, prevent them. 

What important fact did Benjamin Franklin 
bring out in his time? He demonstrated that a 
ton of pure iron is of more practical utility to 
mankind than a ton of pure gold. Pure gold is 
so soft that it can rarely be used for any useful 
purpose, until first mixed with some other metal. 
Whereas, pure iron can be made into a thousand 
and one useful articles, without being mixed with 
any other metal. 

Then the whole world is generally wrong in its 
belief that gold is indispensable to the various 
financial systems of the world? Most assuredly. 

LESSON XI. 
A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 
How would you regulate the issuance of dol- 
lars so that they would not be either too low or 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 103 

too high in value or "purchasing power"? I would 
have a Secretary of the Treasury of the United 
States who should be elected directly by the 
voters of the United States and (subject to the 
pow r er of recall under the system of Perpetual 
Voting which I shall hereinafter explain) in 
whom should be vested the absolute power to 
regulate the supply of dollars throughout these 
United States, in accordance with the following 
articles by the late David Reeves Smith : 

"ARTICLE 1. On or before the tenth day of 
every month, let every person in the United 
States who employs others, make in writing a 
true statement, on a blank form provided by the 
government for the purpose, of the number of 
persons employed by him during the preceding 
month; the wages per hour paid to each person 
so employed ; and the wages paid per hour for 
the same kind of work during the month preced- 
ing the one above mentioned. On the same day, 
or the day after that on which the said written 
statement is prepared, let it be mailed to the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury of the United States. 

"ARTICLE 2. The Secretary of the Treasury 
shall leave out of consideration one-fourth part 
of the number of persons so employed and report- 
ed in the several statements provided for in 
Article 1st; which fourth part shall consist of 
those receiving the highest wages per hour; and 
he shall ascertain, as soon as possible, the aver- 
age wages per hour received by the other three- 
fourths part, and shall consider that average to 
have been the average wages per hour of the cor- 



104 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

responding month, and he shall compare that 
average with the average of the month preced- 
ing that, and thereby ascertain whether wages 
per hour are increasing or decreasing, and at 
what rate per cent; and on every month there- 
after the Secretary shall in like manner ascertain 
the average of wages per hour and the rate of in- 
crease or decrease for the preceding month. 

"ARTICLE 3. The Secretary shall from time 
to time increase the quantity of money in circula- 
tion, but shall never under any circumstances 
whatever, withdraw from circulation enough to 
decrease the average rate of wages. Whenever 
the Secretary shall observe a decrease in the aver- 
age rate of wages, he shall immediately add to 
the quantity of money in circulation so much as 
shall appear to be required to restore the highest 
average rate of wages that had at any time been 
observed after the first monthly statements had 
been made. The purpose which the Secretary 
shall have always in view will be to issue just 
enough currency to prevent the average of wages 
from being for any two consecutive months below 
the highest point at any time reached; but not 
enough to cause any greater advance in wages, 
at any time, than shall appear to be necessary or 
incidental to this method of preventing a decline 
in wages." 

Would not this plan of issuing money place 
too much power in the hands of a single indi- 
vidual? It would, if the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury could not be immediately removed from 
office by the people under said system of Per- 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 105 

petual Voting, in case he did anything detriment- 
al to the interests of the people, according to their 
regularly and duly expressed judgment. 

As the "public eye" would then be turned on 
the acts of the treasurer, by watching the aver- 
age rate of wages, he could not permit the aver- 
age rate of wages to change much, before it was 
observed, generally, by the public. 

How would the Secretary put the money out? 
By establishing Government Employment Sta- 
tions in all cities with a population of 100,000 
or more, at which any competent citizen could ob- 
tain employment at making highways, building 
post-offices, erecting hospitals, school-houses or 
public meeting-halls, laying out parks, or produc- 
ing anything which the National Government or 
the people required, and paying for the services 
so rendered, with full legal tender paper dollars 
issued by the Secretary of the Treasury. 

How much per day or hour should be paid 
the workers given employment at these Govern- 
ment Stations? That would depend on the aver- 
age wages, as shown by the reports sent to the 
Secretary of the Treasury. If the "average 
wages" as determined from the reports were, 
two, three, or four dollars per day, or so much 
per hour (it matters not what the amount), at 
whatever figure the Secretary found "average 
wages," he must keep "average wages" at that 
amount, either by increasing or decreasing the 
supply of money in circulation, and ordering more 
work at increased daily wages or less work at de- 
creased daily wages, at the Government Stations ; 



106 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

or by holding the money in, when it came into 
the treasury by way of taxation or the People's 
Rent. 

Can you make this any clearer? Yes. If five 
hours were to constitute a working-day and five 
dollars a day were the average wages of the not- 
capitalist class (three-fourths class), it would 
take one hour's average work to obtain a dollar; 
and one dollar would command one hour's aver- 
age work at all times. The dollar issued in this 
manner, would be a Unit of Value, and the one 
hour's average work would be a Unit of Labor; 
and each would exchange for the other, in the 
U. S., as long as money was issued according to 
this system. The relative supply of money to 
commodities would then always be the same as 
the relative supply of labor to commodities and 
the changes in value of commodities, in these 
United States, could be measured by a Unit of 
Value, which would not itself change, substantial- 
ly, in value. 

Would the prices of apples or any other com- 
modity go up when measured in this just money? 
They would sometimes. As the supply of apples 
or other commodities became scarce, and if the 
demand were not decreased, the apples would in- 
crease in money-price; or when the supply of 
apples became plentiful and if the demand were 
not increased, the money-price of apples would 
go down. 

How is it now with the present U. S. system of 
issuing money, under which private individuals 
and corporations regulate the supply? Sometimes 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 107 

when the supply of potatoes is plentiful, because 
the supply of money has been increased, the 
money price of potatoes goes up and vice versa. 

Would it make any difference at what average 
rate per day the Secretary fixed the wages? It 
would not, as long as the Secretary kept the 
"average of wages" at some particular figure. For 
instance, it is my personal opinion, that the "aver- 
age of wages" ought to be raised to about five 
dollars per day, in order to supply the people with 
enough money to easily pay off the various forms 
of indebtedness which have been foisted on them 
by the innumerable "financial sharps," which 
this grabbing age has produced. Then, ever after, 
the Secretary of the Treasury should keep the 
"average of wages" at five dollars per day or a 
certain equivalent amount per hour. 

What should the Secretary do when the aver- 
age of wages fell to $4.95 per day? Bring the 
average wages up to $5.00 per day or eighty-three 
and one-third cents per hour (provided the work- 
ing day consisted of six hours daily toil) by order- 
ing more work at the Government Stations and 
paying a few more cents per day. 

What should the Secretary do, when the aver- 
age of wages as shown by the reports sent to the 
Secretary of the Treasury by the private em- 
ployers, went up to $5.05 per day? Withhold 
money from circulation, by reducing a few cents 
per day, the wages paid at the Government Sta- 
tions. 

What should be the constant duty of the 
Secretary while watching these reports? To keep 



108 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

the "average rate" of wages of the "three-fourths 
class" at five dollars per day; drawing or hold- 
ing in money, when "average wages" went above 
that figure per day; and putting money out by 
giving more employment at slightly increased 
wages in the Government Stations, when the 
"average wages" fell below that figure. 

Would the Secretary ever under this system 
be required to withdraw money from circulation? 
Not if counterfeiting could be prevented and the 
savers of money did not suddenly become spend- 
ers. 

Why not? Because all money naturally tends 
to contract itself, due in part to the fact, that an 
important fraction of every nation's money is 
lost, hoarded, destroyed, worn out, locked up, used 
in the arts or over-contracted for. On this ac- 
count, the Secretary's duty would generally be 
to increase the supply of money. 

Would money issued in this manner meet 
either a large or small demand for it? It would. 

Why so? For the reason that when money be- 
came scarce, the applicants for work at the Gov- 
ernment Stations would increase; because the 
"average wages" earned away from the Govern- 
ment Stations, by the employees of private em- 
ployers or by persons working for themselves, 
would decrease, which decrease would send more 
applicants for work to the Government Stations. 
This decrease in the "average wages" as exhibit- 
ed in the "monthly reports," would warn the Sec- 
retary that he must start more improvements for 
the purpose of employing more workmen and get- 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 109 

ting out more money, in order to keep up the 
"average of wages." If the demand for money 
decreased, there would be fewer persons seeking 
work at the Government Stations. As the Secre- 
tary could issue paper dollars, by increasing pub- 
lic employment or by calling in two per cent 
bonds, in which some of the people would have in- 
vested their savings, as fast as "money cornerers" 
or bankers locked them up, any scarcity of money, 
shown by the private employers' monthly reports, 
in a decreased daily or hourly "average of wages," 
could be immediately met, on the part of the Sec- 
retary, as the result of putting out enough more 
new money in the manner described, to keep the 
"average of wages" at the particular figure de- 
cided upon. 

In this way the demand for money would be 
exactly met, no more, no less. 

What effect would this system of issuing 
money have on the "cornerers" of money through- 
out the United States? It would drive them out 
of the "money cornering" business, because they 
would be unable to increase the "purchasing- 
power" of money by decreasing the amount in 
circulation and thereby forcing down the prices 
of commodities, generally, as the result of the 
locking up of large or small sums of money. Any 
sum of money locked up in this manner could be 
easily replaced by the Secretary of the Treasury. 

But could not the owners of coal force up the 
price of their coal by holding their coal supply 
from the market? Not for any considerable 
length of time. 



110 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

Why not? Because the Two Per Cent Tax 
would force the coal-owners to pay increased 
taxes, as the value of the coal went up ; and, also, 
because any one could buy the coal at the assess- 
ment price, on which the owners were paying 
taxes. 

Would this system of issuing money be as 
good as that employed by the Bank of England? 
It would be much better. 

Why so? Because the Bank of England's sys- 
tem requires the raising of the rate of interest 
charged for the use of money, in order to protect 
its reserves, at a time when people are most in 
need of money and are withdrawing it, or striving 
to withdraw it, for the purpose of supplying their 
wants or earning greater returns ; and it requires 
the lowering of the rate, at a time when the peo- 
ple don't need their money very badly and are in- 
creasing the Bank of England's reserve by de- 
positing their money in the bank. 

Who invented this system of issuing money? 
The late David Reeves Smith. 

What did he call money so issued and con- 
trolled? "Just Money." 

Why? Because it is a money which will at all 
times confer on its owners, practically, the same 
quantity of "purchasing power"; a money which 
will satisfy the demand for it whether great or 
small ; a money which will make it impossible for 
private individual-money-owners to stand in the 
way of the laborer, when he wishes to make or 
produce some useful article; a money, the supply 
of which, will be regulated according to the needs 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 111 

of labor; a system of money under which there 
can be no panic or lack of employment; and a 
money which will rest upon a "Unit of Labor" as 
shown in the monthly reports sent to the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury. 

Is there any other advantage about Just 
Money? Yes, it would, most generally, come out 
through the hands of a part of the workers who 
constitute the most useful and numerous class in 
society ; instead of coming out through the hands 
of the few possessors of special privilege and 
great wealth; as is the case under our present 
banking and financial laws. 

Would money issued and controlled in this 
manner supply the industrious and enterprising 
laborers with all the capital they required? It 
would. 

Why so? Because capital is "accumulated 
purchasing-power" and, consequently, whenever 
competent laborers wished to undertake any prac- 
tical kind of an enterprise, they could get all the 
necessary capital or "purchasing-power" they re- 
quired, while carrying the enterprise to a success- 
ful completion, provided the laborer or laborers 
had sufficient valuable assets, or were willing to 
go to work at the Government Stations and be 
paid for their services by the Secretary of the 
Treasury, in full legal-tender paper dollars, of 
substantially UNVARYING VALUE, and issued 
in the manner hereinbefore described. 

Would this change our present banking sys- 
tem? It would to the extent of preventing any 
bank from issuing money. But banks of deposit, 



112 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

of exchange, of discount and of savings, would 
continue, without any material change, only 
greatly reduced in power and number. 

How would the industrious laborer be enabled 
to obtain assets? The Two Per Cent People's 
Rent, when collected annually ; the Assembly Dis- 
trict Recording Law with its penalty of forfeiture 
in case of failure to record any real or personal 
property; and the Self -Assessment Law, which 
have been heretofore described, will reduce all 
large fortunes and make it impossible for anyone 
to hold out of use any real or personal property 
without paying annually the People's Two Per 
Cent Rent on its full value. When these laws are 
on our national statute books and are enforced, 
industrious and provident laborers will never be 
without assets ; and they will be, generally, work- 
ing for themselves, on lands which they will own 
and cultivate, and with machinery which they 
will, generally, own, as the result of having paid 
to the community a two per cent rent on the full 
value of the land and machinery, except when 
they can earn higher wages toiling for an em- 
ployer. 

What do you mean by assets? Any valuable 
real or personal property. 

Why do you affirm that these three laws will, 
generally, diminish big fortunes? Because the 
natural law of Diminshing Returns and the col- 
lection of the People's Rent on the full value of 
all real and personal property (with the two ex- 
ceptions heretofore explained) will make it im- 
possible for the present owners of large quanti- 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 113 

ties of valuable wealth to hold or own large 
quantities of valuable wealth, without paying the 
People's Rent on its full value, when enterpris- 
ing laborers are willing to pay the government the 
People's Rent or tax, on a higher valuation of said 
property, than that on which any tax dodging 
natural or artificial person, possessing great 
quantities of valuable wealth, could pay the Two 
Per Cent Rent. 

What do you mean by the Law of Diminish- 
ing Returns? I will illustrate by an example: 
when a man owns a house equivalent in value to 
ten thousand dollars, he may be able to manage, 
without other labor than his own, the house ; rent 
it, keep it in repair, pay the taxes or Two Per 
Cent Rent on its full value, and, by working him- 
self, obtain an average living for himself and de- 
pendents, by means of the net return from it. 
But if he owned two such houses, he would find 
that the net return from the second $10,000 house 
was diminishing; because he could not manage 
so efficiently, repair and pay the two per cent tax 
on the full value of two $10,000 houses as well as 
he could on one. And if he were to buy a third 
$10,000 house, the net return from the third house 
would still be less pro rata than that on either 
the first or second house. The net return on the 
fourth $10,000 house bought, would still be fur- 
ther decreased, until on the fifth $10,000 house 
purchased, he would have no net return, and prob- 
ably on the sixth $10,000 house acquired he might 
lose money. 

Why are you sure that this Law of Diminish- 



114 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

ing Returns is true? Because the more valuable 
property a small number of owners hold and con- 
trol, the higher in value can said property be 
forced by its owners ; due to the fact that a larger 
number of people must do with less of such prop- 
erty; because the few have obtained more. This 
relation is always expressed in the value of the 
property, and if the law of value were given free 
play by the imposition and collection of a tw T o per 
cent tax on the full value of all real and personal 
property, throughout the United States, with the 
exceptions heretofore mentioned, the more prop- 
erty the average rich man owns, the less would be 
his rate of return from it, as compared with a 
man who owns just enough to keep himself fully 
and profitably employed. 

Is there any other reason for the Law of Di- 
minishing Returns? Yes. A Divine Providence 
has so decreed things that when a valuable prop- 
erty is not repaired and cared for, it generally 
and rapidly tends to decay, and in time resolves 
itself into some preceding elementary state, un- 
less more labor is expended in preserving it. To 
preserve valuable property from decay, every 
large property-owner must hire additional assist- 
ance, as the amount he holds or owns increases in 
value and quantity. For the reason that the aver- 
age hired man will not work for an employer as 
well as he will work for himself, the large prop- 
erty-owner discovers that the more men he hires 
(an employee seldom equals, in energy, a man 
working for himself) the more of his own time 
must be spent in watching or superintending the 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 115 

hired men and, consequently, the less of his own 
personal labor can he apply to the care and profit- 
able management of the property. This entails 
an additional rate of loss to the large property- 
owner, or a diminishing net return, as the 
quantity and value of the property owned by him 
is increased. 

Would this Just Money be a very stable cur- 
rency in the event of war with another nation? 
It would be the very best currency in the event 
of war. 

Why so? Because every citizen in a true re- 
public who possesses Just Money will not be dis- 
posed to have the "purchasing-power' ' of his 
money destroyed as a result of the destruction 
of the true republic. Consequently, he would be 
more selfishly inclined to uphold the true repub- 
lic issuing his money and to fight for it, in the 
event of war, than if the value of his money were 
in the form of gold or silver, whose owners, like 
the Pothschilds and their kind, would most prob- 
ably, take away their white and yellow metal, 
when the true republic became engaged in a war 
struggle ; a time in which a nation needs its "pur- 
chasing-power" the most. 

How many of these Government Stations at 
which U. S. citizens could obtain employment 
would you have established throughout the United 
States? As many as there are cities containing 
a population of one hundred thousand persons or 
more. 

Why so many cities? For the reason that 
there should be many money centers in this coun- 



116 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

try, instead of one chief center (Wall Street and 
vicinity) as is the case to-day. 

Have you any other reason? Yes. The num- 
ber of money centers, such as the proposed Gov- 
ernment Stations, would then be so distributed 
throughout the United States, that unemployed 
citizens or those citizens desiring government 
work, would not be compelled to travel a long dis- 
tance in order to obtain government employment. 

Would this kind of money (Just Money) gen- 
rally remain at home in this country to facilitate 
the exchange of commodities? It would. 

Why so? Because such money would gener- 
ally buy more in this country than elsewhere and 
because every Just-Money-dollar taken abroad, 
which was not lost or destroyed, would soon be 
returned to this country, in which its "purchas- 
ing power" would generally be the greatest, in 
order to be exchanged for other useful things. 

Would this government sustain any loss as a 
result of any Just Money being taken abroad and 
lost or destroyed? It would not. 

Why not? Because every dollar of Just 
Money lost or destroyed abroad, by foreigners, 
would be equal in value to the value of a quanti- 
ty of useful articles left in the United States for 
use and consumption by Americans; said useful 
articles, instead of being applied to the use of 
foreigners, as would have been the case, if the 
Just Money lost or destroyed abroad had been 
preserved and used by said foreigners to purchase 
American articles of utility for the use and con- 
sumption of those foreigners who had lost or de- 



A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 117 

stroyed said Just Money, would be left to home 
for use and consumption by Americans. 

Could the script issued by the Isle of Guern- 
sey village board be used to circulate abroad? 

Not to any great extent. But script legally is- 
sued in the same manner with full legal tender- 
power by a national government founded on the 
consent of the people could be used in foreign 
countries to some extent, but subject to discount. 
But no nation should concern itself about another 
nation's money. Each nation should confine itself 
to regulating the supply and value of its own 
money, independent of every other nation. 

Why would a true republic's dollars naturally 
return to it? For the reason that the dollars is- 
sued by a true republic would be an order or a 
draft on all useful or valuable property for sale 
within the true republic issuing it; and a specific 
number of such dollars would always exchange 
for a quantity of useful or desirable things 
equal in value to that of the specific number of na- 
tionally issued dollars, provided the nation's dol- 
lars were a full-legal-tender Just Money. 

Would this Just Money measure the value of 
any real or personal property in the United States 
without injustice to the owners? It would. 

Why would it? Because its supply would not 
depend on any caprice of Nature or the cupidity 
of bankers or private money-lenders, who gen- 
erally strive to keep the supply of money scarce 
in order to force many people to borrow from 
them at some rate of interest; which would not 
be necessary if the masses could do business gen- 



118 A TRUE UNIT OF VALUE 

erally on a cash basis; nor would the supply of 
money be increased or decreased by any machina- 
tions of "money speculators." While the supply 
of houses, land or commodities, for sale, might 
change, the average daily or hourly wages, in 
Just Money, of laborers, would bear the same re- 
lation to labor at all times ; that is, it would take 
the same quantity of average labor to get a Just 
Money dollar at all times, and the quantity of 
Just Money required to buy any real or personal 
property would be large, when such property was 
scarce ; and small, when such property was plenti- 
ful; just as would be the case when said property 
was scarce, it would require more "average day's 
labor" to get it, and when said property was plenti- 
ful, it would require less "average day's labor" 
to get it. In this manner, a "Labor Unit" found- 
ed on the "average wages," per hour or day, paid 
in the United States, as shown by the monthly 
reports sent to the Secretary of the Treasury by 
the private employers of labor, would be the basis 
of Just Money. 

Is it to the advantage of a nation to have 
gold flowing in to the nation, in excess of the 
quantity of gold going out? Generally, it is not; 
because wherever gold goes, generally, it will be 
found that locality is in need of money and that 
the supply of legal money is scarce, relatively, in 
said locality. This scarcity, in said locality, has a 
tendency to force prices, measured in legal money, 
generally down. As gold generally goes where 
it will buy the most, viz., where prices are general- 
ly falling and money is scarce, it is a bad 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 119 

symptom for that country to which it is going; 
because it shows, generally, in the country which 
it is leaving, that they are using a material for 
money purposes, which is low in value; and, 
therefore, the supply of money is more abundant. 
Just money will not fluctuate from high to low 
value and vice versa. 

LESSON XII. 
VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

If you could convince the American people 
that the Just Money System, and the Death Rate 
Tax System, were all that you contend they are, 
how could you prevent public officials from "sell- 
ing the people out" to the tax-dodgers, money- 
cornerers and vote-buyers, as they now do, under 
our present government? The adoption of the 
late David Reeves Smith's system of Perpetual 
Voting (see cut in appendix), under which the 
electors could exercise absolute control over their 
public servants, at all times, by the means of the 
Pow T er of Recall, would compel public officals to 
become public servants in practice as well as in 
theory; and when any of them "sold out" their 
constituents, or when the constituents really 
thought they had been sold out, said public 
officials could be immediately removed from pub- 
lic office. 

Can you more clearly explain this Perpetual 
System of Voting with which you propose to con- 
trol the Secretary of the Treasury and all other 
important public officials, when he issues this 
Just Money? I can. It is a system of voting un- 



120 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

der which the elector writes on a book, kept for 
the purpose, called a Vote Record, the name of 
his candidate. 

Would not the elector's writing his choice for 
office, on a book, disclose to the public how he 
voted and thereby destroy the "secrecy of the 
ballot?" It would. But secrecy at the ballot-box 
is wrong. Every elector should be required to 
vote in such a manner that any neighbor or citi- 
zen, so desiring, could learn how he voted. 

Is not the secret system of voting the best? 
It is the very worst. 

Why so? Because under the cover of secrecy 
the greatest frauds, outrages and hypocrisies at 
the ballot-box can be perpetrated. 

What do you mean? I mean that when the 
voting is secret, it is easiest for dishonest in- 
spectors or other election officials to overturn the 
will of the people in big cities and elsewhere, by 
permitting "repeaters" to vote or by being unable 
to prevent them from voting, or by dishonestly 
counting the vote. 

Why can't fraudulent "repeaters" under the 
secret ballot be prevented from voting? Because 
professional "repeaters," by acquiring a tem- 
porary "voting residence" in compliance with the 
law, in different polling precincts, are enabled to 
vote illegally in several precincts. As no inspect- 
or of elections can familiarize himself with all, 
or sometimes even a large majority of the voters 
in a densely populated election precinct, the in- 
spector must, in many cases, accept the repre- 
sentations of the "repeater" or his abettors, as 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 121 

to the repeater's identity, residence, and right to 
vote. But under the system of requiring each 
elector to inscribe, in his own handwriting, the 
name of a candidate on the Vote Record, it would 
be possible to discover, in a comparatively short 
time, that the repeater's handwriting was that of 
a man who was not entitled to vote. Then the 
vote could be declared illegal, treated as void, and 
the "repeater" arrested. 

Can not the repeater's vote be thrown out un- 
der the present system, when the ballots are 
counted election night by the inspectors? It can 
not. 

Why not? Because the "repeater's" ballot 
generally presents an appearance similar to that 
of an honest elector's and therefore can not be 
distinguished from an honest elector's ballot. 

What other objections have you to secret vot- 
ing? It enables an elector to pretend to be on 
the side of Truth, Right, and Justice, three hun- 
dred and sixty-four days in the year, and then, 
on the three hundred and sixty-fifth (election 
day), because of employment, a money payment, 
or some other consideration, vote for rascality 
and corruption, without its being generally known, 
except to the politician who buys the vote and the 
vote-seller himself. 

Any other objection? Yes. The fact that 
secret voting enables ignorant and thoughtless 
electors to shirk the responsibility of their votes. 

How so? By affirming, when an officer elected 
by them has proven incompetent or dishonest, 
that they did not vote for said officer. 



122 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

If we had an open system of voting would not 
the rich man intimidate the poor man by threat- 
ening the latter with loss of employment? Not 

if the vote-recording-system were applied to the 
whole United States. 

Why not? Because if everyone entitled to a 
vote in the United States were forced to vote 
openly, it would soon be discovered that the em- 
ployers were very much in the minority, and 
when the workmen learned how great the toil- 
ers' majority was (provided the laws hereinbe- 
fore described, which would prevent tax-dodging 
and money-cornering, were adopted) the workers 
would not submit to dictation on the part of a 
small minority whose "purchasing power" would 
be greatly reduced by the adoption and enforce- 
ment of the Ownership Record, Self Assessment 
and Homestead Exemption laws hereinbefore ex- 
plained. 

Have you any other reason? Yes. 

What is it? Under this Perpetual Voting Sys- 
tem, every elector would be permitted to change 
his vote once a week and, with this power of 
changing his vote, the electors could bring about 
the enactment of laws which would prevent the 
employer from intimidating his employes. Be- 
sides, when an elector could withdraw his support 
from any official, at the end of a week, all govern- 
ment officials in order to hold their "jobs" would 
strive to please their constituents. As doing 
right will only satisy the majority of voters, when 
all the facts are spread before them, employers 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 123 

would be forced by the government to refrain 
from intimidating workmen. 

How do you know that the electors would 
stand up for their rights under open voting? For 

the reason that, when the Ownership-Record, 
Self -Assessment, • Homestead Exemption, and 
Just Money laws are on our statute books, all 
enterprising and provident laborers will own 
enough property with "purchasing power" to en- 
able them to exercise the courage of independent 
free-holders. As owners of homesteads exempt 
from taxation to the amount of $2,000, and free 
from confiscation for the nonpayment of debts on 
that amount, in addition to having an opportunity 
to obtain employment at the Government Sta- 
tions and be paid in Just Money of unvarying 
value, no industrious and provident citizen would 
in any sense be dependent on any employer, as is 
now the case within the domain of the U. S. Gov- 
ernment, under which a very large per cent of our 
most valuable wealth is monopolized by a few in- 
dividuals, who escape the payment of taxes on the 
full value of their property. The ability to live 
independently would make "liberty-lovers" out of 
the majority of workers who would not, when 
they enjoyed true liberty, fear any great capital- 
ist. Only extraordinarily talented men, individu- 
als who had rendered a great service to the com- 
munity, would, under, these laws, possess great 
quantities of capital, and immensely rich persons 
would be so comparatively few in number, that 
no intelligent laborer could be intimidated by 
any employer. 



124 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

Have you any other reason for affirming that 
secrecy at the ballot is wrong? Yes. Under the 
secret ballot it cannot be easily discovered who 
are voting for vicious principles or bad men, 
and who are voting for just principles or good 
men, and at the same time (when the discovery 
is made) deal out to each credit or discredit, re- 
spectively, by the means of public opinion, as 
would be the case when electors vote by writing 
their candidate's name on a public record. 

Why do you insist that a public record of every 
vote should be preserved under a just system of 
voting? Because the illegal vote, when once de- 
tected and identified, under an open method of 
recording votes, could be rendered nugatory by 
the inspector's refusing to count it; while the 
honest vote could be preserved and given at all 
times the full credit to which it is entitled. What 
an inspector of election did, under the open voting 
system, would be closely watched by the electors 
concerned. 

What would be the effect of secret voting if it 
were logically carried out, all through our gov- 
ernment, from the voter, at the ballot-box, down 
to a vote by the members of the U. S. Senate? It 
would destroy all responsibility to the people on 
the part of every public department so voting. 

Can you make yourself clearer? Yes. If our 
U. S. Senate, House of Representatives, State 
Senate and State Assembly were to vote secret- 
ly, the sovereign people could not place, where it 
belonged, the responsibility for any bad national 
or state law which might be passed, and, as a re- 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 125 

suit, the people would be hopelessly in the hands 
of mercenary legislators, who could sell their 
votes and receive the "booty" therefor, without 
being discovered by their constituencies. Bedlam 
would ensue throughout the United States if 
secret voting were allowed in our state and na- 
tional halls of legislation, during the enactment of 
laws; as secret voting is now practiced at the 
ballot-box by our sovereign electors, when choos- 
ing their public officials. 

What is the relation under our American Re- 
public between public officials and the voters? 
That of servant and sovereign. 

When our public servants, such as U. S. Sena- 
tors, Representatives, State Senators and As- 
semblymen vote openly in their respective bodies, 
is it not cowardly and inconsistent for their 
masters, the sovereign electors, to vote secretly? 
It certainly is. 

Why so? Because any people who are fit to 
govern themselves should never be guilty of any 
deed which they are ashamed to record, nor should 
they hesitate to acknowledge any act, good or bad, 
particularly, when they insist on their public serv- 
ants acknowledging their votes. Many citizens 
never ask their servants, public or private, to do 
what they are afraid to do themselves. 

Any other reason? Yes. No "sovereign" 
elector should ask any public official to vote openly 
without being willing to vote openly himself. Prac- 
tical politicians never permit their delegates in 
political conventions to vote secretly; the dele- 
gates must all vote openly. 



126 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

Have you any other reason for approving of 
open voting? Yes. Open voting and keeping a 
public record of every legal vote, would enable 
public officials to observe any change in the rea- 
soning of the people and anticipate it, if the 
change were for the better. 

Would not voters change their officials and 
their policies too frequently, if they were enjoying 
a system of voting under which they could recall 
their public servants any week? They might, 
when the system first went into vogue ; but when 
their intelligence had been improved by learning 
how to stop VOTE-BUYING, MONEY-CORNER- 
ING and TAX-DODGING (Managing a govern- 
ment or controlling their public agents, in con- 
formity with the fundamental principles of a true 
republican-democratic form of government, is the 
most ^important duty or function, in which a 
democratic-republican government's sovereign- 
electors, can engage.) they would discover that all 
officials must be left long enough in office to fairly 
test any particular policy. Most people are natur- 
ally conservative, and disposed to cling to old 
forms and customs too tenaciously. They refuse, 
generally, to adopt new forms and customs sud- 
denly, and are so frequently opposed to progress- 
ive ideas and new systems, that they are them- 
selves, too often, the greatest impediments to their 
own advancement. Nations have with few excep- 
tions been disposed to avoid innovations of any 
kind, and, as a consequence, radical measures 
would not be suddenly adopted, if the people were 
permitted to freely exercise their own judgment. 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 127 

Have you any other reason for advocating open 
voting? Yes. 

What is it? The reason urged by Cicero, the 
great Roman lawyer, who nearly two thousand 
years ago affirmed: that in order to obtain or 
measure the "moral value" (character) of the 
votes by a consideration of the person who gave 
them, the voting must be open. In other words : 
in order to enable a good man to exercise his 
righteous influence on his fellow beings, the laws 
and candidates for which he voted should be 
known to all the electors ; and what the bad men 
w r ere voting for should also be known, that it 
might be opposed by the honest and righteous. 

Would the people have sufficient intelligence 
to properly direct their public servants? The 
majority would, if all the facts were submitted 
to them. "Truth fears nothing but concealment." 

How do the masses of people generally meas- 
ure the efficiency of public officials? By the 
quantity of general prosperity the masses enjoy 
under said officials. When prosperity is great, un- 
der certain public officials, the disposition of the 
majority of voters is to retain such officials in pow- 
er ; and when the prosperity is small, the disposi- 
tion of the majority of electors is to turn out of 
office the public functionaries responsible for the 
increased adversity or reduced prosperity. 

What are the chief features of Perpetual Vot- 
ing? It permits the people to exercise the "power 
of recall ;" to introduce any law they desire to have 
written on their statute books ; to decide what per 
cent of the vote shall elect to, or remove any elect- 



128 VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 

ive official from office ; to veto or repeal any unjust 
law ; to nominate a candidate directly ; and to have 
indisputable evidence against any fraudulent voter 
who attempts to vote by illegally writing down any 
candidate's name on the Vote Record. 

Would not your system of requiring an elector 
to write his candidate's name on a Vote Record, 
in each election-precinct, exclude from voting all 
who could not write? It would. 

Would not this be unjust to the illiterate? It 
would not. 

Why not? Because, if the few illiterate were 
disfranchised, the advantages derived from fair 
and, absolutely honest elections, as the result of 
writing down, by the electors, all candidates' 
names, would more than offset the small injury 
done the few illiterates. We should always strive 
to do the greatest good to the greatest number, 
without invading individual natural rights; and 
any effectual means of guaranteeing the honesty 
of elections would invariably result in promoting 
the general welfare. Besides, the illiterate would 
then have a greater incentive to learn to write. It 
would be no great task for an uneducated man to 
practice writing, sufficiently, to enable him to 
write down a single candidate's name at any one 
time. If the people should decide that "illiterates" 
are naturally entitled to a vote and cannot be just- 
ly deprived thereof, a special provision in the law 
could be made, under which, the inspector of elec- 
tions or a relative, could do the writing. 

Have you any other reason for insisting that a 
voter must write down his candidate's name? Yes. 



VOTE BUYING AND SELLING 129 

What is it? If the state has the right to ex- 
clude from voting all who are under twenty-one 
years of age, it has a similar right, when striving 
to promote the general welfare, to prescribe what 
must be the qualifications of all electors, in order 
to guard most effectually against election frauds 
of all kinds. 

Am I to understand that under the Perpetual 
Voting System electors will be voting "all the 
time?" No. 

What does "Perpetual" mean as used to de- 
scribe Perpetual Voting? It means that when an 
elector writes in the proper place on the Vote 
Record, the name of his choice for any office, and 
lets the name stand unchanged, that (whenever 
the vote is counted, whether every week, month, 
six months, or every year) said elector is voting 
perpetually for that particular candidate. 

How would this system prevent vote-buying? 

By permitting the elector to change his vote once 
in each week, the buyer would be forced to keep 
the vote-seller constantly supplied with money; 
otherwise the vote-seller would not continue sup- 
porting the vote-buyer's candidate, but would vote 
for an opposition candidate in order to compel the 
vote-buyer to provide the vote-seller with more 
money. As the vote-buyers could not supply suf- 
ficient money to induce ail the vote-sellers, or an 
important part of them, to constantly vote for the 
candidates of the vote-buyers, the latter would 
abandon the vote-buying business. 



130 JUST TAXATION 

LESSON XIII. 

JUST TAXATION 

Would you require each state to collect its two 
per cent annual tax or rent on all real and personal 
property, situated in each state? No. I would 
have the National government collect it, and then 
have each state expend its share for improve- 
ments in each state according to the number of in- 
habitants. 

Why not expend the proceeds of the two per 
cent annual rent, according to the value of the real 
and personal property in each state, instead of ac- 
cording to the number of inhabitants? Because, if 
the money so collected were returned to the states 
in proportion to the value of the property in each 
state, the richest state would receive back the 
largest proportion of the two-per-cent-rent-f und ; 
even though the owners of the property in said 
state were few in number. As all citizens of the 
nation are natural owners of equal shares in all 
the nation's real and personal property ; such a dis- 
tribution of the people's rent fund, would violate 
the equality of each citizen's common ownership. 
We should always respect and conform to the 
equality of all citizens in the common-ownership 
of all real-and-personal-property-principle. There- 
fore, the only just and natural law of wealth-dis- 
tribution, is that which distributes the people's 
rent-fund according to numbers. In this manner, 
the thoughtless part of our citizens would be pro- 
tected from the voracity and rapacity of the subtle 
and thoughtful part, by always being entitled to 



JUST TAXATION 131 

employment at public work; no matter how ex- 
travagant or profligate they had been in the past. 

Any other reason? Yes : it is only by having 
the Federal government collect the two per cent 
annual rent or tax from the owners of all real and 
personal property, throughout the United States, 
in proportion to its full value, that equality of tax- 
ation among the citizens of the United States can 
be carried into practice, and be founded on the 
equal, natural and indefeasible ownership of all 
citizens, in all real and personal property in the 
U.S. 

Can you make your point clearer by illustra- 
tion? Yes. An acre of soil at the corner of Wall 
and Broad streets, New York City, at the same 
price in money for which some of the property on 
this corner has been sold, is equivalent in value to 
the value of $20,000,000 of U. S. money. An acre 
of some kinds of ordinary land in Rensselaer Coun- 
ty, New York State, is equivalent in value to only 
the value of $20. If a two per cent tax or rent 
were collected annually from each owner of these 
respective acres, by New York State, on said 
valuations, the owner of the Broad and Wall 
streets acre would be forced to pay into New York 
State's treasury, annually, $400,000 and the Rens- 
selaer County acre's owner would be compelled to 
pay into the Empire State's treasury, annually, 40 
cents, making a total of $400,000.40 paid into New 
York State's treasury to be used for the public 
benefit of the inhabitants of the Empire State, in 
which these two particular New York State own- 
ers would participate and share alike. Between 



132 JUST TAXATION 

these two owners, there would be equality of taxa- 
tion. But if a man in Logan County, 111., owning 
an acre of soil equivalent in value to $20, were to 
pay annually a two per cent tax or rent into Illi- 
nois' State treasury, he would not be equally taxed 
when compared with the New York State's acre- 
owners ; because he would receive no benefit from 
the $400,000 paid into New York State's treasury, 
as the Rensselaer County $20 acre-owner would. 

Would not the Illinois owner of the $20 acre, 
in Logan county, obtain a benefit from a two per 
cent annual tax collected by the state of Illinois 
from a citizen who owned an acre of soil in Chi- 
cago, equivalent in value to the value of $50,000, 
just as the Rensselaer county $20 acre-owner re- 
ceives a benefit from the $400,000 paid by the 
Wall and Broad streets' acre-owner into New York 
State's treasury, provided the two per cent tax, 
or rent, were paid into the Illinois State treasury, 
to be expended in public improvements? He would, 
but the Illinois real and personal property owners, 
as well as all other citizens of the United States, 
are entitled to a share in the benefits to be derived 
from the $400,000 as well as New York State's real 
and personal property owners, because the Wall 
and Broad streets' acre belongs in common to all 
the citizens of the United States, as well as to the 
citizens of New York State. 

Have you any other reason for insisting that 
Illinois citizens and the citizens of all other states 
should share in the public benefits to be supplied 
by the expenditure of the $400,000? I have. 

What is it? The prodigious mountain of value 



JUST TAXATION 133 

or "purchasing power," exercised by the owners 
of the Broad and Wall streets acre, is due in part 
to the wants and existence of the people residing 
throughout the United States, and to the useful 
and valuable things taken by contract from them, 
directly or indirectly, by the Wall and Broad 
streets acre-owner; and the value of the acre, 
should, therefore, be shared in by all the citizens 
of the United States, instead of by New York 
State's citizens alone. Consequently, in order to 
equalize taxation on a just basis throughout the 
United States, our Federal Government should 
collect a two per cent tax or rent on the full value 
of all real and personal property (with the excep- 
tions heretofore mentioned) situated in the United 
States and then expend it for public improvements 
throughout the United States, or for whatever 
purpose the people of the United States, by means 
of their laws, should order. 

What is your reason for affirming that the 
Federal Government should collect the two per 
cent rent, or tax, from the owners of all real and 
personal property throughout the United States? 
For the purpose of establishing equality of taxa- 
tion on the basis of VALUE among all the owners 
of real and personal property throughout the 
United States. 

Do not the owners of personal property pay 
taxes to their respective states on their personal 
property according to its full, value? They do not. 

Why not? Because under the personal proper- 
ty laws of the various states, personal proper- 
ty owners are supposed to be taxed on their prop- 



134 JUST TAXATION 

erty, at the residence of the owners, and the own- 
ers generally, by claiming residence in states in 
which the personal property is or is not situated 
or by offsetting it with fictitious debts, evade the 
payment of taxes or public rent on the full value 
of the largest part of their personal property. 

Can you give a specific example of how per- 
sonal property owners evade the payment of taxes 
on the full value of their property? I can. In 
New York, N. Y., reside many owners of vast 
quantities of personal property, in the form of 
bonds, stocks, yachts, paintings, automobiles, 
mortgages, machinery, works of art, etc., on which 
is paid little or no taxes. A former New York 
City tax commissioner claims that the value of all 
personal property owned by persons actually or 
nominally residents of New York City, equals the 
value of (seventy billions of dollars) $70,000,000,- 
000. in United States money. The larger part of 
this great quantity of personal property-value is 
due to the fact that people residing, generally out- 
side of New York City and without Wall street 
connections, are supplying the interest, earnings, 
dividends, and other forms of "purchasing power" 
collected by the owners of this enormous quantity 
of personal property. By permitting this vast 
quantity of valuable personal property to be un- 
recorded, there is no personal-property-list, in any 
office, similar to the real property-lists at present 
found in County Clerks' offices, which can be ex- 
amined by assessors, or any properly qualified 
citizen, in order to discover what owners are avoid- 
ing the payment of taxes on the full value of their 



JUST TAXATION 135 

personal property. In the year 1909, this vast 
quantity of personal property owned by actual or 
nominal residents of New York City escaped taxa- 
tion, with the exception of $443,000,000. If two 
per centum of the full value of this seventy billions 
of dollars in "purchasing power" were collected 
annually by the Federal Government and expended 
for the benefit of all the citizens of the United 
States, the injustice done citizens residing outside 
of New York city, by permitting said New York 
owners of this vast quantity of personal property 
to escape the payment of their public rent or taxes 
on so large a proportion, would be, to a great ex- 
tent, removed. Were these New York owners of 
personal property required to pay taxes on the full 
value of their personal property at a two per cent 
rate, into the United States Treasury, the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury would have $1,400,000,000 to 
expend, annually, on national public improve- 
ments, besides the additional revenue which would 
come from the owners of other real and personal 
property in the United States, which now escapes 
taxation, more or less, provided the Ownership 
Recording Law and the Self-Assessment Law, 
heretofore described, were written on our national 
statute books and enforced. 

But would not this sum be too large a fund to 
place at the disposal of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury of the United States? Not when he could be 
controlled by the system of voting herein advo- 
cated. Besides, when the laws pertaining to taxa- 
tion, herein described, are enforced, the value of 
all real and personal property throughout the 



136 JUST TAXATION 

United States will fall, which will cause a great 
reduction in the revenue collected, through the 
two-per-eent tax or rent to be paid into the Na- 
tional Treasury. 

Would you allow personal property owners to 
deduct their debts from the value of their personal 
property, and then pay taxes or public rent on the 
value of the remainder? I would, if the creditors 
were American citizens and they were paying 
taxes on the full value of the debts owned by 
them. But if the creditors were foreigners, I 
would allow no such deductions, unless the debts 
were recorded in some Assembly District Record- 
ing Office, in the United States, and the foreign 
creditors were paying taxes on the full value 
thereof, at a two per cent rate, annually. 

Would you apply the same rule to the owners 
of real property? I would. 

In what way? By permitting real property 
owners, who are the legal owners, to deduct the 
value of the mortgages from the value of the 
mortgaged real property, and then paying taxes 
on the remainder, termed, in law r , the "equity." 

Would not the lenders of money charge the 
taxes imposed on the owners of mortgages up to 
the borrowers, when the latter negotiated their 
loans? They would try to, but when Just Money 
is issued in the manner heretofore described, bor- 
rowers would not be at the mercy of the private 
owners of money, as they now are, but would have 
as much to. say about the borrowing of the money 
and the terms of the contract, as the lenders now 
have; and as every owner of real and personal 



JUST TAXATION 137 

property would be compelled to pay taxes on the 
full value of his property, with the exceptions 
heretofore described, taxes or public rent, would 
be collected from the owners of valuable property, 
no matter what the form of the valuable property. 
Consequently, the schemes to shift the burden of 
taxes to the worker or borrower would fail and 
no provident w r orker would be forced to borrow 
money in order to buy a home, or be compelled to 
mortgage any part of his property above the 
amount held under the $2,000 Homestead Exemp- 
tion Law. 

How could our government raise war funds, 
when necessary, under the system of government 
you are advocating? If the two per cent tax, or 
rent, would not supply sufficient money for war 
purposes, the raising of the rate to three or four 
per cent would. But if the aforesaid systems of 
voting, finance and taxation were adopted 
throughout the world, the reduction in value of all 
useful things on this earth to about ten per 
cent of their former value, would destroy the 
greater part of the "war incentive'' which now ex- 
ists, because of the extraordinarily high value of 
useful things and the difficulty experienced by an 
important part of the populations of all nations 
to procure a sufficiency of food, clothing and 
shelter. If every nation on this earth were to 
bring into use the land, houses, patents, ma- 
chinery, etc., within its territory now partly or 
wholly held out of use. or being used for frivolous 
purposes, no nation would, now or in the future, 
seek war as an excuse for despoiling some other 



138 JUST TAXATION 

nation, in order to supply its own propertyless 
people with a sufficiency of food, clothing or 
shelter, or a select few of its wealthy citizens with 
additional plunder. If the plan of government, 
herein advocated, were to be adopted throughout 
the world, it would not be long before every intel- 
ligent person would discover that wars are ex- 
pressly precipitated for the purpose of diverting 
the attention of the oppressed, from their op- 
pressors (kings, plutocrats, bureaucrats, corpora- 
tions, etc.), who, in the excitement brought about 
by wars, shift public attention from themselves 
and continue their exploiting of the producers 
with more impunity than formerly. Armies and 
navies are the governmental safety-valves, which 
prevent the unemployed and disinherited from 
bursting into revolutions. 

Would you require every article of merchan- 
dise, which a merchant has in his store, to be 
recorded on the personal property list to be kept 
in the Assembly District Recording office? I 
would. That is, the maximum number of articles 
of any kind kept in a merchant's store should be 
recorded; but it would not be necessary for a 
merchant to record every article going in or com- 
ing out of his store, after once having recorded 
the maximum number of said articles carried in 
stock. 

Why? Because it would not do to permit tax- 
dodgers to have any excuse for not recording their 
property. The rule that all valuable property must 
be recorded should have no exception, only that 
of money. 



JUST TAXATION 139 

Could a citizen buy any or several articles in 
a merchant's store at the price it was assessed in 
the Assembly District Recording office? He could 
not. He would be required to buy the whole stock 
at the amount on which the merchant had assessed 
his whole stock for taxation purposes. Then, the 
tendency, on the part of merchants, would be to 
record all their property for the purpose of pre- 
venting any buyer of their whole stock, from ob- 
taining the whole stock at too low a price. 

What great advantage have these New York 
owners of undertaxed real and personal property 
over citizens in other states? By the means of 
the enormous and partly taxed "purchasing 
power" exercised through their ownership of this 
great quantity of valuable real and personal prop- 
erty, they command the services of unskilled la- 
borers, mechanics, legislators, politicians, etc., 
throughout the United States, to such an extent 
that they can corrupt, and frequently do, nearly 
every state and national legislature, enact or re- 
peal laws, legalize official or unofficial dishonesty, 
exploit innocent toilers, seduce great numbers of 
unsophisticated women; or do almost anything, 
however degrading or unscrupulous, for which 
money or other kinds of "purchasing power" can 
compensate. 

Cannot each separate state, by enacting just 
real and personal property laws, control and regu- 
late the "purchasing power" of their respective 
property owners? It cannot. Only the National 
Government can exercise this function justly and 
effectively. The "purchasing power" of real and 



140 JUST TAXATION 

personal property owners extends beyond all state 
lines. 

Is not the "purchasing power" enjoyed by New 
York City's wealthy citizens due to the natural 
advantages of the city's location? Some of it is; 
but the greater part is due to the fact that New 
York City is a secure asylum for personal prop- 
erty tax-dodgers, and is also the headquarters of 
the chief money-owners in the United States. 

Why is the metropolis a safe retreat for per- 
sonal property tax-dodgers? Because the tax laws 
of New York State are so lax, and so negligently 
enforced, that personal property owners in said 
state are not compelled to record their personal 
property in any "recording office" ; and for the ad- 
ditional reason, that, when a personal property- 
owner falsely states the amount of his indebted- 
ness, that he may deduct it from the amount of 
the assessment of the personal property on which 
he is liable for taxation, the tax commissioners of 
New York City seldom examine under oath, the 
so-called creditors or alleged owners of said debts, 
for the purpose of discovering, whether or not, the 
indebtedness is fictitious. 

Would the collection of the Two Per Cent rent 
or tax from all real and personal property owners, 
throughout the United States, by the Federal Gov- 
ernment, prevent personal property owners from 
claiming or establishing residences in different 
states, in their efforts to avoid the payment of any 
tax or rent on their persona! property? It would 
prevent such owners from, severally, claiming 
residence in cities in which they did not actually 



JUST TAXATION 141 

live; because, wherever they lived in the United 
State, they could not avoid payment of taxes or 
public rent on the full value of their real and per- 
sonal property and they would soon learn the 
futility of attempting to avoid the payment of 
their taxes or public rent, provided the Ownership 
Record and Self Assessment laws were enforced. 

How do the tax commissioners of New York 
City learn the names of personal property owners, 
residing or claiming residence in New York City? 

By guessing at them, with more or less good faith. 

What do you mean? I mean that the tax com- 
missioners of New York City have no PUBLIC 
LIST of personal-property-owners similar to the 
real property list kept in the New York City tax 
office. Consequently, New York City's tax com- 
missioners, or their employees, look through the 
city or business directories, and search, indiffer- 
ently, for names displayed in capital letters, or the 
names of brokers, bankers, lawyers, merchants, 
etc., and after making a guess as to who may or 
may not have valuable personal property, send 
such persons legal commands, called "tentative 
notices," to report to the tax office and testify, 
under oath, as to their possession of valuable per- 
sonal property. 

Can you explain why owners of large quanti- 
ties of personal property (men like Ludrew Tar- 
nagie, Pohn Hockeseller, etc.) deliberately select 
New York City, or vicinity, as a residential haven, 
when desirous of avoiding the payment of their 
personal property taxes? Yes. Because New 



142 JUST TAXATION 

t 
York City's tax commissioners will tax such own- 
ers "by consent." 

What do you mean "by consent?" When a 
rich personal property owner from the west or 
south or any state, other than New York, is dis- 
satisfied with his personal property assessment, 
in his former home, he or his attorney, visits the 
New York City tax commissioners, and after 
claiming residence in New York City, agrees to 
pay taxes on a very insignificant assessment, to 
which the commissioners generally consent, on the 
ground that if they refused to accept the personal 
property owner's proposition, he would claim resi- 
dence in some out-of-the-state town, in which the 
tax-assessors of said town would agree to assess 
him on a smaller amount, and New York City, 
as a result, would receive nothing in the form of 
taxes from said owner's personal property. 

Have you any other reason. Yes. New York 
City is an excellent place for living in a large 
apartment house, in which access to a native- 
personal-property-owner, or an owner who is dodg- 
ing the payment of taxes on personal property 
which ought to be paid in his former western or 
southern home, is unapproachable, to any kind of 
a process server. These tax-dodging-personal- 
property-ow r ners can seldom be surprised while in 
said apartment rooms ; because all persons seeking 
them must disclose the nature of their missions, 
through a telephone to the dodger or his secretary, 
before any of them is permitted to see the person- 
al property owner and evader of process-service; 
or else the person desiring the interview must con- 



JUST TAXATION 143 

vince the person hiding that his mission is not that 
of a messenger from outraged Justice. There are 
a large number of these personal property tax- 
dodgers who even refrain from voting in order to 
conceal their residences, which they use frequent- 
ly, only as temporary abodes. 

What would be the effect of the Ownership 
Recording Law and the Self Assessment Law on 
the various stock and produce exchanges in New 
York City and other large speculating centers? 

Were these laws enforced on the owners of all real 
and personal property throughout the United 
States, by the Federal Government collecting the 
Two Per Cent rent, or tax, annually, on the full 
value of all real and personal property, with the 
exceptions heretofore mentioned, and were the 
power of issuing money taken out of the hands of 
private individuals, banking corporations, etc., 
and placed exclusively in the hands of the U. S. 
Secretary of the Treasury, in the manner herein- 
before described, and with said officer controlled 
by the Perpetual Voting system, the power of all 
speculating-exchanges in these United States to 
monopolize or manipulate money and commodities, 
would be so materially reduced that such bodies 
could no longer be a species of parasite on the body 
politic of society. 

Which is the most powerful trust, existing un- 
der our present government? The money or bank- 
ing trust. 

Why so? Because the money or banking trust 
is the keystone of the "trust arch" which holds to- 



144 JUST TAXATION 

gether the great majority of trusts in this 
country. 

How do you make that out? For the reason 
that it is the money or banking trust which dic- 
tates to and regulates all the other large monop- 
olies, such as those of meat, coal, oil, land, iron, 
sugar, lumber, etc., and makes it possible for the 
"cornering" of such commodities to be successful. 

Can you make this point clearer? Yes. When 
Parmour contemplates "cornering" meat, he must 
secure the approval of the money or banking trust ; 
otherwise, the money trust, or its branches, w T ould 
refuse to let him have the amount of money neces- 
sary to employ his agents, in buying up the most 
important part of all saleable meat. If the "money 
trust" were to condemn Parmour's financial ma- 
chinations, it would not permit him to monopolize 
an important part of the meat supply, but would 
refuse to let him have the necessary amount of 
money with which to carry out his nefarious 
schemes, and as a consequence the "corner" would 
fail. Gavemeyer, P>atten, Hockfeller, Lorgan and 
other great owners of partly taxed wealth, who 
are generally part bankers, never proceed to "cor- 
ner" any commodity without the approval of the 
bankers. Thus it is that the "money trust," or 
bankers have first "insight" into almost every 
"cornering"scheme ; and therefore can retard or 
promote almost every monopolistic conspiracy un- 
dertaken in this country. And it is even so with 
stocks.* When a corporation's stock is put on the 
financial market, whether listed or not, the bank- 
ers by refusing to lend money on it, can »ubstan- 



JUST TAXATION 145 

tially destroy the "purchasing power" of its own- 
ers. On the other hand, the bankers, by lending 
money on a worthless stock, can increase its value 
until it advances in money price to the figure at 
which it is profitable for those on the "inside," 
with the assistance of lies and false financial re- 
ports, to sell. 

Would the owners of all kinds of stocks, 
whether watered or not, be forced to record their 
stock in some Assembly District Recording office, 
in which the owner lived, under the penalty of 
forfeiting it to the first person who discovered it 
unrecorded? They would, if it were, or about to 
become valuable. 

Would you, by law, force the owner to sell the 
stock at the valuation on which he was paying the 
Two Per Cent rent or tax? I would. 

Would not the purchaser, in this manner, buy 
it too cheap from the owner? Then let the owner 
assess the stock at its true valuation, or a little 
higher, in order to protect himself. Two . per 
centum is only two dollars on each one hundred 
dollars, Yet two per cent annually, on the value 
or "purchasing power" of all watered stock, would 
bring a great revenue to the federal government 
and serve as a deterrent to those unscrupulous 
promoters, who issue watered stock for the express 
purpose of selling it to a gullible public or extort- 
ing unjust interest and dividends from the people. 

How would the Two Per Cent tax or rent effect 
the monopolizers of food? It would force the own- 
ers of food kept in elevator-granaries, cold stor- 
age warehouses, farmers' barns, wholesale houses, 



146 STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 

retail stores, or elsewhere, to pay two per cent 
annually on the full value of the food being held 
for future rise in value or money-price, as well as 
upon the full value of the granaries, barns, cold- 
storage plants, etc. But the greatest benefit de- 
rived from this tax, or rent, would go to the work- 
ers, who, being enabled to obtain land and other 
valuable property at a low price, measured in Just 
Money or labor, would produce a very important 
part of everything they needed, and in this man- 
ner, be relieved from the necessity of buying at 
exhorbitant prices from the (at present) tax dodg- 
ing trusts or millionaires. 

Do you know of any country in which this idea 
of buying an owner's property at the valuation in 
the public record, on which he is paying taxes is 
practiced? Yes. New Zealand employs this idea 
in part, when collecting taxes on land. 

How so? Whenever an owner of land in New 
Zealand is dissatisfied with his assessment, the 
New Zealand government pays the owner the 
amount at which it is assessed, plus ten per 
centum of the amount, and then takes possession 
of the land as government property, to be sold to 
a new purchaser. 

LESSON XIV. 
STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 
What is this "liberty" about which the mem- 
bers of all schools of political economy talk more 
or less? "Liberty is the equal, indefeasible right 
of all citizens to use all wealth, in their own way, 
and for their own individual benefit ; the right of 



STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 147 

each being limited, only, by the equal right of 
every other." 

Has liberty any relation to the making of con- 
tracts? Yes, Liberty includes the right to make 
or not to make any legal contract concerning our 
services or our property and to have it enforced. 

Can a government prevent its citizens from 
making contracts? Only in a limited degree. 

Why so? Because citizens will make reason- 
able contracts in secrecy and carry them out in 
secrecy, even when prohibited by the government. 

What is a contract? Briefly; a contract is an 
agreement, between two or more competent par- 
ties, to do or not to do some particular act, in con- 
sideration of something useful or valuable. 

Should a truly republican government encour- 
age the making of contracts? It should when they 
are just. 

Why so? Because, by the means of contracts, 
time and labor may be economized — thus enabling 
the devotion of more human effort to true educa- 
tion and elevating amusement, on the part of all 
laborers. 

Have you any axioms or principles with which 
to examine the justice of all laws relating to con- 
tracts or personal rights? I have. 

What are they? They are TRUE DEMO- 
CRACY'S fundamentals or rules and axioms 
evolved from the experience of the different na- 
tions on this earth, in their efforts to preserve 
themselves, triumph over their enemies, or pro- 
mote the general welfare of humanity. 



148 STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 

Can you further explain them? Yes. They 
are a set of postulates which, if strictly adhered 
to by a government, will promote the general wel- 
fare of its people in the greatest degree. They 
are as follows: 

All men have an equal right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness. 

All men should be equal before the law. 

The sovereignty of a government should be 
vested in the whole people to whom it of natural 
right belongs. 

Every truly democratic government is an agent 
of the whole people and should exercise its power 
only with the consent of the governed. 

In production we should strive to exercise as 
much economy of time and labor as possible. 

Every person should have the privilege of pur- 
suing whatever legal vocation he pleases, provided 
that in so doing he effects no person unjustly. 

Public officials should be public servants in 
practice, as well as in theory. 

The income a citizen receives should be in 
direct proportion to the service he renders the 



STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 149 

community ; that is, if his service is large, his in- 
come should be large; and if his service is small, 
his income should be small. 

Every person engaged in any legal vocation is 
supposed to render the community a service. 

Every man should pay annually a two per cent 
tax or public rent to the community, for the wealth 
he is using, in proportion to the value of the wealth 
he uses. 



The man who economizes should be permitted 
to enjoy the fruits of his economy. 

Those persons best qualified for doing specific 
work are the persons who should be encouraged 
to do such work. 



Every competent person should be required by 
law to produce, at the least, as much as he con- 



sumes. 



All men should be considered innocent of any 
criminal intent until duly proven guilty by the 
law of the land. 



The welfare of the individual should be sub- 
ordinate to that of the community, limited by the 



150 STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 

inalienable natural rights of the individual. 

The higher ownership of all real and personal 
property is vested by natural right in the whole 
people. 



That act only should be done which results in 
the greatest good to the greatest number, with- 
out invading individual natural rights. 

The will of the majority should always pre- 
vail, when individual natural rights are not in- 
vaded. 



No man should be deprived of life, liberty, or 
property, without due process of law. 

An injury to one is the concern of all. 

The benefit of all is the concern of each. 

"There is only one right way of doing things ; 
all other ways are necessarily wrong in some de- 
gree." 



The State should never do for an individual 
that which he can do for himself. 

"A truly democratic government should not en- 
gage in business of any kind, unless it can do so 
in a better manner and at a less cost than the 



STATUTE LAW CRUCIBLE 151 

same business can be done by private enterprise." 

The safety of the people is the supreme law. 

No private citizen's property should be taken 
from him and given to another private citizen. 

"The intensity of our desires is correctly mea- 
sured by the quantity of effort we are willing to 
expend in satisfying them." 

No special privilege should be granted any 
private individual. 

All men should be encouraged to supply their 
wants with the least legal exertion. 

All competent citizens should be permitted to 
make or not to make any legal contract. 

The foregoing postulates, if rigidly observed 
by our law-makers, would reduce enormously the 
number of legislative enactments, annually in- 
scribed on our statute books, and bring order and 
simplicity out of the chaotic state in which statute 
law is now generally known to be. These axioms 
and principles (the principles are found in the na- 
ture of things) if taken together, will serve as a 
"law-crucible" with which to test all man-made- 
statutes. Any law, which conflicts with any of 
these axioms or principles, will not fit into said 
crucible and should be immediately repealed or 
removed from our statute books; on the theorv 



152 LOGICAL DEFINITIONS 

that it is wrong, unjust or impracticable, and in 
the course of time will be discovered by the peo- 
ple to be wrong, unjust or impracticable. 

Is there not much confusion among lawyers 
and students of political economy, in the use of 
the important terms necessarily employed by them 
in their eif orts to clearly convey their various 
ideas? There is. 

How would you obviate such confusion? By 
adopting the following definitions, which do not 
(with the exception of the definition of Price) vio- 
late any of the Rules of Definition agreed upon by 
proficient logicians, when engaged in reasoning 
about, or describing, the principles of Natural 
Law: 

RIGHT " is that which promotes or increases 
human happiness/' 

SOVEREIGNTY "is the right to define the 
right and enforce the decision." 

OWNERSHIP " is the right to use or utilize 
wealth." Individual ownership is subordinate to 
city-ownership; city-ownership to county-owner- 
ship; county-ownership to state ownership; and 
state-ownership is subordinate to national-owner- 
ship. 

USEFULNESS "is that which tends to pro- 
mote utility." 

WEALTH "is anything that may be used or 
utilized." 

PROPERTY "is wealth owned." 

VALUE is purchasing-power. The value of a 
thing is the purchasing-power which the owner- 
ship of the thing confers on the owner of the 



LOGICAL DEFINITIONS 153 

thing. Value is not an attribute; it is a relation 
between property and humanity. It cannot be 
qualified. Using the adjective — substantives, 
"intrinsic," "exchange," "money," "market," 
"book," "rental," etc., to qualify value is like at- 
tempting to qualify "purchasing-power." There 
is but one kind of value and that is "purchasing- 
power." Scarcity is an indispensable relation ac- 
companying value. 

BUSINESS is the making of contracts with- 
out sentiment. 

CAPITAL is "accumulated purchasing power." 

WORTH is a specific quantity of value. 

CAPITALIST is an owner of capital. 

PRICE "When two things are exchanged, one 
for the other, each is the price of the other; or 
the price of a thing is that for which it will ex- 
change." 

LABOR "is any legal effort to obtain an in- 
come." 

INCOME "is the wages of labor ; it is the legal 
equivalent (in value or 'purchasing-power' ) for 
the products of the person who receives the in- 
come." 

PURCHASING POWER "is the ability -to 
buy." 

DOLLAR is a money unit established by a 
government : Its most important function is that 
of measuring value. Its subordinate functions 
are those of discharging debt and facilitating ex- 
change. It should fluctuate as little as possible in 
"purchasing-power." - It should be a full legal 
tender and be composed of a suitable material 



154 LOGICAL DEFINITIONS 

having the least value as a commodity. It should 
be based on the Labor Unit. 

WAGES are the return, in wealth, received 
by the laborer for the expenditure of his labor. 

REAL WAGES "are utility." 

LEGAL WAGES are the quantity of value or 
incoming "purchasing-power" legally received or 
acquired by the laborer. 

UTILITY "is that which satisfies a desire, or 
supplies a want." 

LIBERTY "is the equal indefeasible right of 
all citizens to use all wealth in their own way and 
for their own individual benefit ; the right of each 
being limited only by the equal right of every 
other." 

JUSTICE "is the rendering to every individual 
his rights, on the basis of equality of natural 
rights to all." 

RENT "is the price paid to the owners of 
wealth by the users of wealth." 

PRIVATE OWNERSHIP "is the right of an 
individual or plurality of individuals to appropri- 
ate to their own exclusive use some part of the 
common estate." 

LAW "is the formal expression of the collec- 
tive will of the people." 

EDUCATION is that training of the mind and 
body which enables the trained citizen to promote, 
or assist in the promoting, of the general welfare 
and, to also obtain for him or herself a just share 
of said general welfare. 



CONCLUSION 155 

SCIENTIFIC "is that which in point of form 
is logically perfect and in point of substance has 
the character of truth." 

ARISTOCRACY "is that part of society which 
controls legislation, subsists upon and exploits 
the other part." 

Would the employment of the foregoing 
axioms and definitions, in promoting the general 
welfare, alone establish justice under this gov- 
ernment or any true republic? They would not. 

Why not? Because a practicable and feasible 
method with which to prevent vote-buying, tax- 
dodging and money-cornering (the three great 
evils under all governments) must go with them. 
In other words, we must use the Perpetual Vot- 
ing System in learning the will of the people and 
carrying it out; the Ownership Record, Self- 
Assessment and Homestead Exemption laws in 
collecting the People's Rent or the two per cent 
Death Rate Tax annually, on the full value of all 
real and personal property, not exempt from taxa- 
tion; and the Just Money System in measuring 
the value of all real and personal property, when 
effecting exchanges, or assessing real and per- 
sonal property for the purposes of taxation or the 
collection of the People's Rent. 

THE END. 



A ten dollar prize will be awarded to any person who 
will compose a better definition than any of those on the 
preceding pages and forward it to the Society of the True 
Republic. 



156 



APPENDIX 



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THE VOTE RECORD 157 

The preceding diagram represents John 
Taffe's page in a Vote Recording Book, to be kept 
in every election district office and on which Taff e 
can write on a single line, once in each week, the 
name of any qualified citizen whom he desires to 
occupy any respective office. The election-dis- 
trict-office must be open for voting purposes, 
within reasonable hours, every day in the year, 
excepting Sundays and legal holidays. On each 
page, under each respective office, must be fifty- 
two lines, one for each week in the year, on which 
the elector can write the name of any eligible per- 
son he may select for any respective office — one 
name written on each line, within any week. 

At the end of each year, the voter must be 
assigned a new page. The name written on the 
lowest line written on is his choice for the office 
printed at the top. Should Taffe sell his vote, by 
agreeing to vote for P. G. Hill as his candidate for 
governor, on the receipt of five dollars, he can do 
so, by writing the name of P. G. Hill on a line 
under the title GOVERNOR. The next week he 
can vote for W. Tweed and continue voting for 
Tweed, by letting Tweed's name stand, without 
any name written underneath, until he is given 
five dollars a second time to write in the name of 
P. G. Hill. The vote-buyers haven't enough 
money to keep all the vote-sellers, or an important 
part of them, constantly supporting any particu- 
lar candidate. This feature will stop vote-buying 
or make it ineffectual. 

The elector under this system can change his 
candidate, at almost any time, and, in this man- 



158 THE VOTE RECORD 

ner, directly nominate a candidate and exercise 
the "power of recall" over all public officials. 
Should a "repeater" write on Taffe's page the 
name of "J. Ryan" as the "repeater's" choice for 
mayor, the difference between the "repeater's" 
handwriting and Taffe's being apparent, the evi- 
dence, on which to convict the "repeater" of the 
crime of fraudulent voting, is easily procured. 
The "repeater's" vote however must not be 
counted. 

Under "NEW LAWS" Taffe has voted to in- 
troduce into the state legislature, law No. "3050," 
written by himself or a friend, and, in congress, 
law No. "2038," also written by himself or a 
friend. Under "LAWS REFERRED" Taffe has 
exercised the "referendum" by voting for law No. 
"98" and against law No. "72," both of which 
have been referred to the voters. 

The "60%," at the top of the last right hand 
column, is the percentage of votes cast, which 
Taffe thinks, is necessary to elect a candidate to 
office. He also believes that, when a candidate 
has less than "40%" of the voters supporting 
him, said candidate must vacate his office. Ac- 
cording to this elector, a candidate can go into 
office only when "60%" of the voters record him 
as their choice; and said official can remain in 
office until his supporters fall to below "40%" of 
the recorded votes, in the district or division 
through which the candidate runs ; when he must 
vacate the office. It is the average of "percent- 
ages" as expressed by the various voters, having 
the right to vote for a candidate, that determines 



THE VOTE RECORD 159 

the percentage necessary to elect to or eject from 
office. 

This system of voting embodies direct nomi- 
nations, referendum, power of recall, initiative, 
proportional voting, decides whether a plurality 
or majority shall elect to, or remove from office, 
makes it impossible for fraudulent "thugs" to 
vote, without leaving indisputable evidence of 
their crime on the Vote Recording Book, and 
actually enables the people to control their pub- 
lic officials. Address 

THE SOCIETY OF THE TRUE REPUBLIC, 

No. 149 Church Street, New York City. 

PRESIDENT, Alfred Urfer, 985 Amsterdam 
Avenue, New York, N. Y. 

VICE PRESIDENT, John M. Deithorn, No. 
2203 Carson Street, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

TREASURER, Dr. A. C. Tidd, No. 904 Mahon- 
ing Bank Bldg., Youngstown, Ohio. 

SECRETARY, Thomas J. Sandford, 149 
Church Street, New York City. 

Criticism and correspondence are cordially in- 
vited. Lecturers supplied, when possible, on rea- 
sonable terms. 

All readers, who approve of the voting, taxa- 
tion and financial systems, herein expounded, can 
become honorary members of the Society of the 
True Republic, by forwarding their names and ad- 
dresses to the secretary. No membership fee or 
dues are charged honorary members. 

The "Laborers' Catechism/' cloth-bound, post- 
age prepaid, 50 cts. Address secretary, 

No. 149 Church Street, New York City. 



,60 



INDEX 



Mankind should devote its talent and energy to in- 
creasing the utility of wealth instead of to increasing its 
value. 

INDEX 



Automatic redistribution 48 
Articles of Confedera- 
tion 61 

Axioms 148 

Air has no value 19 

Agriculture — effect on. 31 

Average wages 107 

Armies 138 

Aristocracy — definition 155 
Bank of England . .81—110 
Business — definition . . . 153 
Benjamin Franklin .... 102 

Bonds 80 

Basis of Just Money . . . 118 
Congress should regu- 
* late money value .... 79 

Credit system 101 

Capital— definition .... 153 
Cicero — on secret voting 127 

Confiscation 34 

Contracting power .... 28 

Copper cents 77 

Changing officials 126 

Credit 82—100 

Capitalist — definition . . 26 
Capital — not to be 

over-taxed 27 

Credit money 99 

Contract — definition . . . 147 

Deducting debts 136 

Democratic fundament- 
als 148 

Definitions 152 

Death Rate Rent . .44—131 

Dollar — definition 153 

Distribution of wealth . . 130 
Direct nominations .... 159 
Diminishing returns . . .113 

Dollar — honest 77 

Dollar — based on labor. 79 

Divine Providence 114 

Employing laborers . . . 101 

Export tax of 20% 52 

Employer's wages , 63 



Earning a million 69 

Exchanges — without 

dollars 73 

Education — definition . . 154 

Equality of men 8 

Exchange incentive — 

value 41 

Foreign capital 57 

Fictitious prosperity . . 96 
Freedom of contract ... 65 
Farming — effect on ... 31 

Gold standard 56 

Government can't fix 

gold value 72 

Gold cents 77 

Government employ- 
ment 105 

Gold value — instability. 56 

Gold basis 80 

Gold imports 118 

Homes — in Colonial 

times , 28 

How fortunes are made 30 
Haven of tax-dodgers . . 140 
Homestead exemption . . 48 
Individual can't fix 

price for people 39 

Intimidating voter .... 122 
Increasing value of 

dollar 86 

Improvements 11 

Interest accumulaton. . 97 

Illiterates 128 

Initiative — new laws . . .158 
Income — definition ....153 
Imports and exports ... 51 

Indirect taxation 61 

Issuing money 103 

Justice — definition .... 154 

Just money 110 

Jefferson Thomas * 9 

Limiting incomes 69 

Liberty lovers 123 

Low wages 68 



INDEX 



161 



Labor is wealth 64 

Law — definition 154 

Liberty — definition .... 146 
Labor — definition .64 — 153 
Labor is not valuable. . 62 
Labor is not a com- 
modity 62 

Low prices and high 

wages 53 

Laborers pay all the 

taxes 58 

Landlord entitled to 

wages 24 

Money's important func- 
tion to measure value 40 

Measuring value 117 

Moses' Jubilee year. ... 46 
Money exempt from 

' taxation 49 — 50 

Money-trust greatest . . 143 

Money 70 

Money no measure of 

value 41 

Market built with script 87 

Money of U. S 41 

Means of living 8 

Meeting demand for 

money 108 

Money centers 115 

Millionaires retreat . . . 141 
Nation's purchasing 

power 94 

New Zealand assess- 
ment 146 

New York City tax- 
dodgers ............ 134 

Natural Law of Dis- 
tribution 51 

Navies 138 

Owners of exports 55 

Open voting 126 

Obstructing enterprises 97 
Ownership by dead .... 10 
Ownership Record Law 32 
Ownership of the earth. 9 
Ownership — definition .152 

Ownership layers 11 

Obtaining assets 112 

Phillips Wendell 53 



Purchcasing P. af N. Y. 

owners 139 

Public eye 105 

Practical politicians . . . 125 

Prosperity 127 

Perpetual voting 127 

Personal property taxa- 
tion 133 

Purchasing power. 15 — 153 

Private property 13 

Private ownership. .14 — 154 
Price-r-definition . . 39—153 

Power of Recall 122 

Property — definition . . . 152 
Purchasing power built 

market 92 

Personal rights ....... 147 

Railroad ownership .... 44 

Redistribution . 46 — 47 — 51 

Recording debts 50 

Redemption of dollars. . 85 

Rights of property 24 

Rent — definition 151 

Right — definition ...... 152 

Right of ancestry ..... 10 

Repeaters thwarted . . . 120 

Referendum 158 

Renting rooms 19 

Reason for two per cent 

rent 45 

Surplus wealth 44 

Skinned going and com- 
ing 88 

Secrecy 124 

Stock exchanges 143 

Scientific — definition ...155 
Sovereignty — definition 152 
Self- Assessment Law. . 33 
Solon on Export Tax. . . 58 

Single Tax 25 

Secrecy of ballot. .121—124 

Stolen wealth 31 

Standard of value . . 54—73 
Tax-commissioners, N. 

Y. City 141 

Ten dollar prize 

Taxation — national 

question 131 

Tax-dodgers of N. Y...133 



162 



INDEX 



Taxation of capital. .27—28 
Taxation — Indirect .... 61 

Tax-payer 58 

Tariff question — mis- 
leading 54 

Taxation by consent. . .142 
Title through monarch 37 

XL S. Notes 96 

Unvarying value Ill 

Unit of labor ..106 

Unit of value 102 

Usefulness — definition 152 

Utility — definition 10 

Vote-buying .......... 129 

Value of some land 

can't be abolished. . . 36 
Value — some is good . . 36 
Voting— publicity 124—125 



Vote-buying and 

selling 119—129 

Value — definition 152 

Value of U. S. dol- 
lars 43—76 

Wages — definition 66 — 154 

Wages — real 66 — 154 

Wages — legal 67 — 154 

Work: not wanted 53 

Wealth— definition 10—152 

Worth — definition 153 

War 137 

Wall st. regulates 

money supply 43 

Wealth with value and 

without 35 

Wages — right to legal. . 68 
World all wrong 102 



THE LAST WORD 163 

My Dear Reader: 

The fact that you have read this book, from 
the beginning to the end, is conclusive proof that 
you have the "mathematical mind"; otherwise 
you would not have had sufficient tenacity of pur- 
pose to examine the just principles of Nature's 
Economy, herein described. It is the intelligent 
thinking mind that, in the last analysis, domin- 
ates the business realm of this terrestrial sphere. 
You can materially assist in bringing about an im- 
proved condition of affairs on this earth, by circu- 
lating among your fellow beings the knowledge 
of the just and feasible plan of government, here- 
in advocated. 

VOTE - BUYING, TAX - DODGING and 
MONEY-CORNERING are, unquestionably, the 
greatest governmental evils known to mankind; 
because they underlie nearly all other evils and 
are the basis of all monopoly. That they can be 
stopped has been conclusively proved, by demon- 
strating that the LIGHT of PUBLICITY, when 
shining on our systems of voting, of issuing 
money and of collecting taxes, eliminates, to a 
negligible quantity, these pernicious practices. 

The great majority of humanity are naturally 
disposed to do that which is right; but their en- 
vironments and education, frequently, lead them 
to do otherwise. By explaining to others, that 
there is a just and practical way out of the world's 
present dilemma ; that the lines of evolution, here- 
in elucidated, conform with justice and are with- 
out doubt feasible, you will assist in restoring, to 
many skeptical persons, their belief in the exist- 



164 THE LAST WORD 

ence, throughout the universe, of a Higher In- 
telligence. 

Jeremy Bentham, a conscientious English 
lawyer, wrote : "Truth is that w T hich persents the 
same appearance to God, angel, man or devil/' 

We know that the plan of government, per- 
ceived in nature, by the deceased civil-engineer, 
David Reeves Smith, squares with all truth and 
checks, at every turn, the schemes of our talented, 
but unscrupulous "captains of industry." Its funda- 
mentals, or the parts thereof, are to-day actually 
carried out in different countries on this earth. 

Will you help the Society of the True Republic 
to push into mankind's mental "spot-light" the 
true remedy, as herein described, for the majority 
of humanity's misfortunes and, thereby, enable 
all nations to avoid ages of bitter experience, grop- 
ing along in the dark, for that which the genius 
of David Reeves Smith has already discovered? 

"Where there is no vision the people perish: 
but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." Pro- 
verbs, XXIX., chap. 18v, 



(December, 1864, Letter to Edmund D. Taylor, of Chi- 
cago, 111. — Van Buren, p. 404.) 

My Dear Colonel Dick: I have long determined 
to make public the origin of the greenback and tell 
the world that it is one of Dick Taylor's creations. 
You have always been friendly to me and when 
troublous times fell upon us and my shoulders, 
though broad and willing, were weak, and myself 
surrounded by such circumstances and such people 
that I knew not whom to trust; then I said in my 
extremity, "I will send for Col. Taylor, he will 
know what to do." I think it was in June, 1861, 
on or about the 16th, that I did so. You came and 
I said to you "What can we do?" Said you : "Why, 
issue treasury notes, bearing no interest, printed on 
the best banking paper. Issue enough to pay off the 
army expenses and declare it legal tender." Chase 
thought it a hazardous thing, but we finally accom- 
plished it and gave it to the people of this republic, 
the greatest blessing they ever had — their own 
paper to pay their own debts. 

It is due to you, the father of the present green- 
back, that the people should know it, and I take 
great pleasure in making it known. How many 
times have I laughed at you telling me plainly that 
I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer. Yours 
truly, A. Lincoln, President. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

027 293 689 4 



